


Together

by Monty Python Fan (orphan_account)



Series: The More Things Change [5]
Category: British Comedy RPF, Monty Python RPF
Genre: 1970s, Angst with a Happy Ending, Birthday Fluff, Car Accidents, Coma, Dark, Doctors & Physicians, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Head Injury, Heavy Angst, Homophobic Language, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, Life changing injuries, M/M, Men Crying, Nurses, Paralysis, Period-Typical Homophobia, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-06-09 09:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 50,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6900880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Monty%20Python%20Fan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accident changes the Pythons lives, relationships and friendships forever.</p><p>Timeline: April-May 1970</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Michael Palin stirred in his sleep as the telephone began to ring, letting out a groan as it hurt his head. He managed to unpin himself from his partner’s vice like grip, somehow not waking Eric Idle in the process, and reached blindly for the phone in the dark. Yawning, Michael finally grabbed it and held it to his ear.

“Hello?” He yawned. He couldn’t help the rising panic beginning to tighten in his chest, but Michael knew that it was never good news when someone phoned in the middle of the night.

“Mike, it’s Gray,” Graham Chapman slurred down the line.

Mike smiled slightly, wondering if this was one of his friend’s silly drunken phone calls. Graham always prank called him when he got drunk (which happened far too often, when he thought about it). And he was now almost certain that Gray was going to try and guilt trip him about not coming out, even though he had repeatedly explained that Eric was too ill for them both to come out.

“What is it?”

“Uh, I’m n-not quite sure how to say this,” Graham said, and Michael recognised a thickness to his voice that wasn’t to do with alcohol.

“Gray, are you crying?” His voice cracked, but, somehow, the sudden noise didn’t wake Eric up. “What’s wrong?”

“Um, well, you see, I’m k-kind of at the hospital—”

“Are you hurt?”

He heard Graham sigh and swallow hard, his breathing shuddering. Michael’s heart was pounding in his chest. He gave Eric a hard nudge, but he simply groaned and rolled away from him.

“No, I’m not,” Gray paused. “Look, Mike, there’s b-been an accident.”

“What?”

“Gilliam and Jonesy are i-in A and E right now, they’re hurt.”

Mike’s chest was tightening; he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What?”

“Gilliam was hit by a car.”Graham said, his voice wobbling.

“Fucking hell!” Mike said, beginning to feel sick. He shoved Eric’s shoulder, hard. “Eric, wake up.”

“Jonesy fell and broke his arm and hit his head, but he’s fine – I mean, he’s conscious. But Gilliam . . .” Graham trailed off, and Mike realised that his friend was crying.

Eric finally woke up, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes groggily. “What is it, Mike?”

“Graham,” He said firmly, even though his voice was beginning to shake. “Is he . . . dead?”

“No!” Gray snapped, sounding outraged.

“Who’s dead, Mike?” Eric asked, switching the light on above their bed. Mike saw confusion on his flushed face, and put his hand on his boiling hot arm. “What’s going on?”

“I mean, shit, I’m sorry, I’m just so fucked up right now.” Gray took in a shuddering breath, swallowing hard. “But, no, he isn’t d-dead.”

“Thank God,” he muttered.

“They’re taking him in for surgery right now.”

“Is John with you?” He asked, trying to calm herself down for Gray’s sake.

“Yeah, he’s in the lav,” Graham said. “He keeps throwing up, but he’s fine.”

“Do, do you want me to come down?”

“Come down where?” Eric asked.

Graham sniffed loudly. “If you don’t mind.”

“Right then, I’ll be there ten,” Mike said. “And Gray?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

\-------------

John Cleese, his stomach churning, stumbled out of the men’s toilets and back into the waiting room, where he went and sat with Terry Jones and Graham Chapman, both looking as stressed as he felt. Terry was holding his left arm awkwardly against his chest, his elbow appearing to be sticking out in the wrong direction (which it was, because Gray had easily worked out that he’d fractured his arm) and Gray had his arm around Terry’s shoulders. They both looked like they’d been crying. Which wasn’t surprising, considering what had happened.

The waiting room was disturbingly full, so, whilst Gilliam had been taken straight in for surgery the moment they arrived, Jonesy was still waiting to be seen. He had a huge bruise blossoming on his forehead, but he seemed very alert. Unlike Graham, who seemed to be even more intoxicated than he was earlier. And certainly unlike Gilliam, who hadn’t responded in the slighted since the . . . the accident.

“How are you feeling, Terry?” John asked, sitting down beside his friend. He ignored the woman who was staring at him in recognition, and tried to focus on his friends.

“Fucking awful,” Terry muttered.

It was hard to get anything out of Terry, John found. He didn’t want to talk, and neither did Graham, leaving John with nothing to do but to stare into space. He couldn’t stop thinking about the accident; it all happened so fast. One minute, they were walking along the pavement, engrossed in a conversation (or argument), and the next, everyone was yelling and a car had mounted the pavement and was racing towards them. And then . . .

He shuddered, trying not to think about it. Thinking about it might have made him cry, and he couldn’t, in front of so many people.

Luckily, John was quickly offered a distraction when Mike and Eric arrived. They were holding hands, gladly flaunting their not-so-secret relationship, although Mike appeared to be pulling Eric along, which wasn’t so surprising really, considering how ill Eric looked. He knew that Eric had a fever, but it would have been obvious to someone without that knowledge, because he was visibly shivering and his cheeks were incredibly red. His normally fluffy hair was stuck to his head with sweat.

Mike flopped down beside Terry, and Eric sat beside John, slumping in his seat and breathing heavily.

“So,” Mike said shakily. From this close up, John could see his eyes were red and shining with tears. “What happened? Tell us in detail exactly what happened and what’s wrong and how he’s doing?”

“I’m fine, Mike, thanks for asking,” Jonesy muttered bitterly, but he was smiling, even though the tears were still leaking from his eyes.

Mike suddenly stopped rambling and spluttered with laughter, and John, who was at first concerned, found his strange, hysterical giggles too contagious, and he started to chuckle. Soon, they were all laughing, to the point that a nurse came over to shut them up.

At least that was something, John decided. As long as everyone was laughing and joking, he could pretend that everything was all right.

\--------

When Terry finally went to have an X-ray, Graham offered to accompany him. Jonesy agreed, glad for company, especially as it meant having someone to lean on, as he was beginning to feel very dizzy. And there was something oddly comforting about Gray’s presence, even when he was too drunk to even walk in a straight line.

As the nurse led him into a cubical, Graham started telling him about what was going to happen, naming the machinery and procedures with remarkable ease, and the nurse smiled at him.

“You certainly know a lot about medicine, sir,” she said, obviously not recognising him.

She got Terry to sit on the bed and took a seat at the desk. The sudden movement as he sat down jolted his arm, and he bit back a wince.

Graham, a bit bemused, sat down on the chair at the foot of the bed, and patted Terry’s good arm. “That’s because I’m a doctor, madam.”

“You are?” Now she looked bemused too, smiling a strange smile.

“Yes,” Gray held out his hand, which she shook. “Doctor Graham Chapman at your service.”

She still didn’t recognise him, and Gray gave Jonesy a funny look. She didn’t recognise Terry either when he gave his name and personal details, even when he accidently called himself Terry Gilliam. Gray giggled, but he couldn’t help it; Terry just couldn’t stop thinking about his namesake and how he saved him from getting hit by the car. His eyes filled with tears, but Terry blamed it on the pain and wiped them dry.

“So, what exactly caused your injuries?” The nurse asked.

“Uh, well, my friend pushed me and I fell over and I landed on my arm and hit my head as I fell I landed funny and felt something crunch.” Terry said it quickly, trying to force it out. He only realised after he’d finished that he had painted Gilliam in a rather negative light.

“Why did he push you?”

Terry opened his mouth to tell her, but he couldn’t say it. His eyes were welling up again, and the only noises he could make were slightly squeaky sobs. Thankfully, Gray came to his aid, covering his hand with his own and turning to the nurse.

“A car mounted the p-pavement, madam,” he explained, even though he seemed to be struggling too. “He pushed Terry out of the way and got hit himself.”

“I’m so sorry,” the nurse said, and Gray squeezed his hand, letting Terry feel the tremor in his own.

Terry fought back the tears, knowing that once he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

But he did cry, loudly, when his arm was set and wrapped in plaster, and he knew it was only partly because of the pain. It was more to do with the fact that if he was in pain, what did Gilliam feel like?

\--------------

After being led to a special waiting room near the operating theatres, Eric lay down on a row of chairs, and shut his eyes. He felt dreadful, feverish and shivery and exhausted and wobbly, and also stressed as hell, because Mike was stressed and that made him stressed. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, even though they were the only ones in this waiting room, because he couldn’t help but think about Gilly’s surgery going wrong.

Mike came over to him, and, after shuffling him around a bit, they ended up with Eric’s head on Mike’s lap, with his partner’s hands ruffling his long hair. “How’re you feeling?”

“Pretty shite,” Eric said truthfully.

John sat down opposite them, letting out a sigh. He rubbed his face with his shaking hands, looking close to tears. “I still can’t believe that happened. It just came out of nowhere.”

Eric was about to ask what he meant when a nurse came into the waiting room.

“I’m looking for the next of kin of Terrence Vance Gilliam,” she said, and Eric almost laughed as he heard Terry’s middle name for the first time. It was almost as bad as Marwood.

Eric slowly sat up and looked at John and Mike, and, at the same time, John voiced the thoughts that they all must have been thinking. “He hasn’t got one.”

“He isn’t married?”

“No,” Mike said.

“Does he have any immediate blood relatives?”

“Yes,” John said. “But they’re in America.”

The nurse sighed. “I see.”

“Why do you need a next of kin?” Eric asked, having to lean against Mike as he started to feel wobbly again.

“It’s a standard hospital procedure, sir,” the nurse explained. “We need Mr Gilliam’s next of kin in case he doesn’t regain consciousness and we need their advice on how would be best to treat him—”

“But he will regain consciousness, so that argument is pointless,” John snapped with surprising aggression.

Eric didn’t listen to whatever she said next, more interested in the expression on John’s face. He was fuming, his face going as red as Eric’s, and the younger man wasn’t really sure why. After all, even though he hated to admit it, the nurse was probably telling the truth.

\--------------

A while later, Gray and Jonesy came and joined their little huddle in the waiting room, and waited with them. Gray looked drunker than ever, and Terry was sporting a cast up to his shoulder with his arm in a sling. He looked pretty wobbly too, and Mike got out of his seat to put a hand on Terry’s good arm in case he fell.

“I’m all right on my own, Mike, really,” Terry insisted, easing into the chair beside John’s. Gray sat down beside him, resting his hand on his arm. Mike felt an odd surge of jealousy as he realised that his best friend didn’t want to sit with him, but quickly brushed it aside, realising that other things were more important.

He sat back down again and put his arm around Eric, who was still shivering. Eric leaned against him, resting his head on Mike’s shoulder. He was burning hot, and Mike felt guilty for dragging him out.

“How did it go then, Terry?” He asked, breaking the awkward silence.

Terry shrugged his good shoulder. “Gray was right – I broke my arm. Had an X-ray on my arm. Then they set my arm and it fucking hurt.” He sounded groggy as he spoke, but Mike presumed that was normal after hitting one’s head, at least he hoped it was.

“Yes, I’m sure the pain was awful for you, with your not at all life threatening injury, Terry,” John snapped condescendingly, with a patronising smile.

Terry glared at him. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” He paused, but didn’t give John a chance to answer. “Look, John, I know what happened to Gilliam, and I know it’s awful and shit and the poor sod must be in agony if he’s even awake, but how does that make my pain inexistent?”

Mike sighed and rested his head against the top of Eric’s. He hated it when they argued, but Terry was definitely right this time. Although he didn’t exactly blame John either for acting like an arsehole.

“Look, you two, just stop it,” He said, like a mother telling off her naughty children. “Please. Think of where we are.”

He expected an argument, but Terry simply shut up and John stormed off, muttering about how they were all bastards under his breath. Mike considered going after him, but he’d learned from previous experiences that John should be left alone when in a bad mood.

Desperate to break the tension, he turned back to Terry, who was leaning even further into Gray’s personal space, his face very red.

“You know, Terry, I really do want to hear about the X-ray,” he said, trying to smile.

Terry looked up at him, and Mike saw tears in his eyes. “Really?”

“Of course.”

He saw Terry swallow, and take in a shuddering breath. “You lot don’t think what John said was true, do you?” He said, his voice wobbling.

“Of course we don’t,” Mike said, leaning across the gap to pat his friend’s knee.

Eric had fallen asleep, but Gray patted Terry’s good arm and added, “He was j-just being an arse, mate.”

“Y-you know what John’s like,” Mike said.

But when John came back a while later, his eyes were red and puffy, and Mike realised that he had been crying. And, although he wasn’t sure why, Mike found that John crying seemed to make their already shit situation a lot more serious.

\-------------

They waited endlessly. Mike watched the clock on the wall, which ticked so loudly that it made his head hurt. Eric dozed on and off, his hot and sweaty face buried into Mike’s jacket. Gray drank not so inconspicuously from a rather large gin bottle tucked inside his jacket. Joensy shuffled around uncomfortably, trying to sleep against Graham’s shoulder but not able to because of the pain. John paced around the waiting room, seemingly unable to sit still, wandering off and occasionally returning with very red eyes. And Mike knew he wasn’t the only one thinking about what might be going on in the operating theatre.

After a while, Mike dropped off to sleep, only getting woken up when Eric nudged him in the chest. His eyes burring with fatigue, he raised his head and saw a doctor stood in the doorway. He was wearing scrubs, and looked as tired as Mike felt.

“Family of Terrence Gilliam?” He asked, scanning the room. Mike followed his eyes, noting that John wasn’t here and Gray had fallen asleep, his head lolling on Terry’s shoulder. Jonesy stared back at him, and Mike saw the fear in his bloodshot eyes. Jonesy poked Gray, but he seemed totally out of it.

“Yes,” Mike said to the doctor, jumping to his feet. Of course, he wasn’t, but he didn’t care; he and the others were the closest that Gilliam had to a family over here.

The doctor smiled wearily, and offered Mike a hand. Michael shook it. “That’s good. I’m Doctor Davies; I led the operation on Mr Gilliam.”

He let go of Mike’s hand and sat down opposite him and next to Jonesy. Mike sat too, taking hold of Eric’s hand and squeezing it hard.

“How is he?” Eric asked, shuffling to sit upright. The doctor looked at him strangely for a few seconds, as though shocked to see him looking so feverish, but quickly went back to the topic of interest.

“Well, the surgery was a success, and he’s stable—”

The three conscious Python’s sighed in relief.

“However—” Dr Davies continued, and Mike’s chest tightened. Eric’s hand felt sweaty against his.

“What?” Jonesy said, with surprising aggression.

“Well, his injuries were very severe,” the doctor said.

“You don’t say,” Jonesy muttered, but he looked a bit tearful this time.

Dr Davies sighed, and held out his hands, beginning to count a list off on his fingers. As Mike listened to him, he felt his stomach churning like he was going to be sick. “His left arm was broken in six places; we had to insert metal plates into his arm to realign the bones. Three ribs were cracked, and two more were totally snapped, one of which punctured his lung; we repaired his lung and put the bones back into place, but there is a large amount of swelling around his lung, and it will be very sore and painful for a while.

“His spleen and stomach were both ruptured; we removed his spleen and stitched his stomach up, but not before a large amount of stomach acid irritated his abdominal lining. His pelvis was broken in two places; we didn’t do anything to that, as it should heal on its own. His right ankle was shattered; we had to put several dozen pins inside his leg to realign the fragments of bone, but we might not be able to save it. His spine was damaged by a fractured vertebrae, but, other than putting his back in a brace, there is nothing we can do about that, as spinal cord damage is permanent.”

“Do you mean he’s paralysed?” Mike asked, trying not to imagine Gilliam in a wheelchair.

“Only partially,” Davies said, and Mike sighed. “He should still feel pain and some sensation, but his legs will be unable to support his body without braces or other supports.”

When Davies finally stopped, he seemed out of breath, and Mike wasn’t surprised.

“Fucking hell,” Eric breathed.

“Wh-when the paramedics put him in the ambulance,” Jonesy said shakily. “They put a tube down his throat.”

“Yes,” the doctor nodded. “He had to be intubated. That actually brings me to the biggest problem; you see, Mr Gilliam sustained severe head injuries. The pressure on his brain was so much that we needed to remove a piece of his skull to release it, and there is a significant amount of bleeding on the brain.” Davies sighed again, and rubbed his forehead.

“What?” Eric leaned so far forward in his seat that he almost fell off of his chair. “Please tell me this is a joke.”

Davies shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“But, but what does that mean?” Mike asked, not understanding the medical babble. He considered waking Gray, but he was likely so drunk that he wouldn’t be able to speak coherently, let alone understand what the doctor was talking about.

“He was comatose when he was brought in, and hasn’t regained consciousness since, and it seems more than likely that he may never come out of it.”

Jonesy looked like he was going to be sick. Mike felt his eyes sting as they filled with tears, unable to believe what he was hearing. Not only was Gilliam in a coma, but it sounded like he might even be brain-dead.

“But he might come out of it?” Eric said, like he couldn’t face the facts and was just grasping at straws.

The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling slowly. Mike wondered how many people the doctor had had to give bad news.

“He might, however, if he does, there is a high possibility that he will have significant brain damage.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Brain damage?”

Mike turned his head at the rather high pitched cry, and saw John stood in the doorway. His red eyes were widening rapidly, and he looked like he was about to throw up.

Davies nodded his head slowly, and he turned around in his seat so he could face John. “Yes, sir, I’m afraid that is very likely.”

John’s bottom lip twitched for a few seconds, but then he clenched his hands into tight, trembling fists, and swallowed hard, somehow managing to keep himself calm. He stumbled across the room and slumped into a seat next to Eric, who was staring at him warily.

“Fuck,” John said simply, and his voice shook. He closed his eyes and tensed his shoulders, and added, as though he really didn’t want to say it nor hear the answer. “What else?”

Sighing, Davies repeated the whole list, and Michael and Eric watched John for his reaction. Their friend didn’t let them see his face, covering his eyes as he nodded and murmured to show the doctor he was listening, but his shuddery breathing told them all they needed to know.

When he was up to date with all of the crap that had happened, John leaned backwards in his seat, sighing heavily. He dragged his fingertips across his cheeks as he exposed his face, a not so subtle attempt to wide his eyes dry, showing Michael his shining eyes and tense expression.

“Bloody hell,” he mumbled, like he didn’t know what else to say. Mike didn’t blame him; he was just as dazed when he heard the news.

“I know it must be a lot to take in,” Davies said, and John nodded.

“You’re right ‘bout that,” Graham mumbled, not moving his head from its position on Terry’s good shoulder. It hadn’t occurred to Mike before now that he and Terry had been invading each other’s personal space ever since he saw them when he arrived at the hospital, and it made him curious.

“When can w-we see him?” Terry asked.

Michael snapped out of his pointless thoughts and paid attention fully, leaning forward in his seat and awaiting the doctor’s response. He wanted to see Terry, to see how he looked and how he was doing, and to see how his friends would react too. Yet the thought of seeing his friend now she knew what had happened to him made Mike’s chest constrict with anxiety, making it difficult to breathe properly.

“Well, not right now, I’m afraid,” Davies said, and everyone visibly slumped.

John made a low, gruff groan, and hung his head. Eric tried to pat his arm, but John swatted her hand away, muttering something under his breath that Mike couldn’t hear.

“Why not?” Gray asked, even though, being a doctor, he should have known better than any of them. Then again, he _was_ drunk, so. . .

“When we completed Mr Gilliam’s surgery, he was moved to a recovery room, where the patient is closely monitored whilst their anaesthetic wears off. This will not begin wear off for about another hour, and his recovery will decide what we do next. If he regains consciousness, he will be moved to a critical ward and taken off the ventilator, but if he doesn’t, we will have to transport him to the intensive care ward.”

“Yes, we know that, but why can’t we see him now?” Eric said irritably, voicing Mike’s own thoughts.

“To keep it sterile, no visitors are permitted into the recovery room, I’m afraid.” Davies smiled, but Mike knew he was just as tired and unhappy as the rest of them.

John suddenly raised his head. “What about partners?”

The doctor’s eyebrows knitted together in obvious confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

“I mean,” John sighed. “Would his partner be allowed into the room with him?”

“But Terry’s not married, John,” Terry said, sounding just as confused as the doctor looked. Mike just stared at John, wondering what he was doing. He had an idea, but . . . no, that couldn’t be it.

“I know that, Terrence, I’m not an idiot,” John snapped. He turned back to the doctor, and added, “I mean his _partner_.” He said it was deliberate emphasis, practically winking at the puzzled doctor, and confirming Mike’s idea.

“John, what are you—?”

The doctor seemed to catch his drift, lowering his gaze somewhat awkwardly. “If you are implying that he has same sex partner, Mr Cleese, then the answer is still no – no one is allowed in the room. That means no spouses, no next of kin, no family members, no friends, and certainly no unmarried partners.”

“What do you mean ‘and certainly no unmarried partners’?” John cried, his voice beginning to screech the way it did when he was angry.

“What the bloody hell are you talking about, John?” Eric said. “Terry isn’t with anyone. He’s single. None of this applies to him at all.”

“Calm down, John,” Michael said, his eyes flitting between the doctor and John

John ignored him, instead turning to Eric. “Nothing,” he said meekly, already calming down. “It was just a thought. Don’t mind me.”

Looking totally confused and more than a little awkward, Davies cleared his throat and said, “So, as I was saying, you will have to wait until he’s out of the recovery room before you can see him.”

“But how long will that be?” Terry asked.

“Probably around six hours, I’m afraid.”

“Fucking hell!” John groaned, and this time Mike didn’t say anything to try and calm him down.

\--------------

Terry wanted to sleep so badly, but his arm wouldn’t stop throbbing with pain so severe it made him want to throw up again. The pain was constant and severe, not quite as bad as it had been before they set it, but enough to keep him awake. Even cuddling up against Graham, who was leaning against him for some reason, wasn’t helping, and he was getting rather pissed off by it. But he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping even without the broken arm (or the sore head, by extension, which was making him a bit light headed), because he kept wanting to cry whenever he thought about the accident.

It was hard to process; he still didn’t know what really happened. He had been aware of a car racing towards him, and then Gilliam’s hands shoved painfully against his back, and he stumbled right into the middle of the road and tripped over his feet and fell on his arm and smacked his head, and he heard a huge cracking thud and squealing breaks and people screaming and then another thump. And then silence, deafening silence.

He had expected people to come rushing over to him, but no one did. He could hear John making sounds like he was being sick, Graham saying “Terry?” over and over again, and he thought he was talking to him, but still no one came. So he had forced himself to roll onto his back, pain shooting through his arm, and his elbow was sticking out at weird angle and he felt sick and people were still screaming . . . and that was when he saw it.

He saw people crowded around something, Graham yelling at people to back off, and John doubled over, chucking his guts up. A woman had come rushing over to him, and was trying to get information out of him, but Terry had just wanted to know what was going on. He had spotted the car a few seconds later, and seen the dented bonnet and the badly cracked windscreen which was stained red in one place, where the glass had totally snapped. His vision began to blur and the street span and he heard her voice echo as he strained his eyes to look at the car, where John had suddenly appeared, and was screaming abuse at the driver through the window, and a man was trying to pull him away, and he was telling everyone to fuck off, looking more hysterical than he had ever seen him before.

And then the woman finally told him, looked him straight in the eyes and said the words that made him sick all down his shirt. His hearing was a bit hazy, but he heard her loud and clear as she said, “Your friend’s been hit.”

“You all right, Terry?”

“Hmm?”

He turned his head and realised that Mike was talking to him, his eyes wide with concern.

“Yeah.” He lied. “Was just thinking.”

“About the accident?”

Gray stirred in his sleep, his head bouncing against his arm, before pressing his face into his shoulder. Terry was slightly jealous of his friend for being able to sleep, even though he knew Gray was only sleeping because he was so drunk.

“Yeah,” he repeated.

“You know, Terry,” Mike said, beginning to rub the back of his neck in the way he always did when he was stressed. “You can talk to me about it if you want to, if it’ll help.”

Terry smiled and looked down at his plaster cast, blinking back the tears stinging in his eyes. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m fine.”

“Really?” Mike asked, like he didn’t believe him. And Terry didn’t blame him, because he knew better than the rest of them that he was talking complete crap.

“Really.”

“If you say so, mate,” Mike smiled, and, giving his good arm a squeeze, got up and went to sit back with Eric, who appeared to have fallen asleep again.

Michael, looking concerned, sat down beside his partner and touched his forehead. He frowned and pressed the backs of his fingers against Eric’s flushed cheeks, before looking back up at him.

“Terry?” He said, and there was a hint of panic in his voice.

“Yes?”

“I think his temperature’s going up.”

Even though he didn’t really care (knowing how bad that must have seemed still didn’t faze Terry, who was more preoccupied about what was going to happen to Gilliam than Eric’s health at the moment), he forced himself to sit forward and pay attention to Mike’s concerns. “Well, what was it earlier?”

“About thirty eight, so not that high, really,” Mike babbled. “But he’s definitely heating up.”

“If yuo don’t m-mind me asking,” Graham suddenly said, making Terry and Michael both jump. He hadn’t realised that Gray was even awake, let alone listening to their conversation. “Why’d you e-even bring him o-out when he’s ill?”

“I didn’t make him come, Gray, he wanted to,” Mike said, looking near tears, his eyes shining. “I asked him if he wanted to stay home, but he said he wanted to come. It’s not my fault . . .” Mike’s voice was beginning to go whiny, like he was about to burst into tears any second, and his bottom lip was wobbling.

“All right, I’m sorry, don’t g-get upset,” Gray said quickly, leaning across the gap to pat Mike’s knee. His tone of voice made him sound flippant and irritated, but Terry saw the concern in his eyes, and Mike, who began to smile weakly, must have too.

“Sorry,” Mike sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “I’m just . . .” He trailed off, but Terry knew what he meant.

“I know,” he said. “We’re stressed as fuck too, aren’t we, Gray?”

Graham nodded, his drunken state meaning he did it far too roughly, obviously jarring his neck as he winced in pain. Rubbing his neck, he said, “Yesh, y-you could easily sa-say that.”

Terry considered saying something else, but Mike beat him too it. “Gray, could you give his temperature a check for me?” He asked, sounding like he might break down if Gray refused, and Gray nodded again, more sensibly this time.

Not even trying to stand up, Graham slid off of his chair right onto his knees, and shuffled across the small gap between the rows of seats to where Eric was lying, asleep. Blinking blearily, Gray wiped his hands dry on his jeans and pressed the back of his hand against Eric’s forehead.

“How is he? Is he in danger? Or is he fine?” Mike said, continuously bombarding Gray with questions that he obviously wasn’t processing, the panic audible in his voice.

But, thankfully, Gray smiled, and got back into his seat, immediately leaning back against Terry’s non-broken arm. “Nope, h-he’s fine.”

Mike beamed, sighing in relief. “Are you sure?”

“For God’s sake, Mike, don’t be so fucking stupid - he’s a bloody doctor, of course he’s sure!” Terry snapped before he could stop himself, instantly regretting it as he saw his best friend’s face crumple. Mike’s bottom lip started wobbling and his eyes filled with tears, and Terry felt fucking awful.

“Michael, are you . . .?” Gray said, as though he didn’t know what was going on. And Terry wasn’t sure he did either.

“Shit, I didn’t mean it like that, Mike,” he stuttered, but not before Mike broke down right there, right in front of him, in a sobbing mess that made Terry feel like he’d been punched in the chest. But no matter what he said, Mike wouldn’t stop.

It was over a minute later that Terry realised that Mike actually _couldn’t_ stop.

\---

It seemed obvious to Mike who had broken first as the tears began to cascade down his cheeks, sobs catching in his throat and making him choke. It was so humiliating and actually physically hurt, and he wanted to stop, but he just couldn’t. Terry’s eyes were widening rapidly, his face written with fear and concern, but that only made him cry harder. Mike pressed his hands to his face and tried to control himself, but the sobs were too intense, his shoulders shaking and his eyes burning as the tears continued to flow.

“Please, Mike, I’m sorry, don’t cry, please,” Jonesy kept saying, and he started patting Mike’s knee, but that didn’t help.

Graham was suddenly beside him, sliding an arm around his waist and hugging him tightly. “Don’t cry, old chap,” he said, his breath stinking of gin, but Mike didn’t pull away.

With the exception of Eric, Gray was the friend he felt closest to, probably because he was the only other person he knew who happened to be gay, and his presence helped a lot. He felt pathetic that Jonesy had made him break down, partly because Terry was supposed to be his best friend, but mainly because he was supposed to be strong. The others had seen the bloody accident, yet they weren’t so stressed by it that the first little thing to get to them made them cry, were they? No, he was just pathetic and weak, and that only made it worse.

“I’m really sorry, Mike,” Terry said, and his voice was shaking. Mike looked at him though the tears and saw that there were tears in his own eyes, but yet he hadn’t broken down.

“Mike?” Eric stirred beside him and suddenly had his arms around him too, stroking his hair with one clammy hand and whispering, right in his ear, “Ssh, it’s all right, mate.” And things like that, the sort of meaningless rubbish that really seems to help you when you’re upset.

It took several more minutes of sobbing and comforting for Mike to get control back, but, finally, with shuddery breathes and a sodden face, he managed to stop sobbing. Terry leaned across the gap and gave him a tissue, continuing to apologise ramblingly, which he took with a smile, and wiped his face dry.

He leaned the side of his head against Eric’s and sighed heavily, still feeling pathetic for breaking so easily.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking at Terry’s cast and wondering exactly what happened; he knew the basics of the accident, but not as much as he would have liked.

“For what?” Gray asked.

Eric stroked his hair and pressed their heads closer together, and Mike felt the heat radiating from Eric’s face. “You don’t need to be sorry, mate.”

“He’s right, Mike,” Jonesy said. “It was my fault, not yours. I’m sorry for snapping at you, I’m just so stressed it’s unreal.”

“Tell me a-about it,” Graham said. “I k-keep wanting to cry, but I c-can’t.”

“I know what you mean,” Eric said. “My chest is all tight and I’ve got a lump in my throat, but I can’t bloody cry.”

“I think John’s been crying,” He said out of nowhere, trying to distract the others from him, as he didn’t want to be centre of attention any more. “I think that’s why he keeps going off on his own.”

“I know, I saw that t-too,” Gray nodded. “But y-you can’t go after him, ‘cause he, he’ll kill you if you see him when he’s u-upset.”

“Yeah, I made that mistake once,” Eric said. “We were at the BBC and he’d just had a row with Connie over the phone and then stormed off, and I went after him and tried to talk to him, but he threw a vase at my head.” He chuckled, which surprised Mike, given the nature of his anecdote. “I mean, a bloody vase! He could’ve killed me! He missed, but that wasn’t the point, in my book.”

“Eric,” Terry said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Stop talking now.”

Eric stared at him for a few seconds and then started spluttering with giggles. Mike stared at him, wondering what the heck was wrong with Eric, and why his partner giggling was making him want to laugh too, even though he still felt tearful. The others stared too, but they just looked bemused.

Eventually, Eric stopped laughing, and everyone sat in a very awkward silence, Mike watching the clock and feeling amazed at how late it was – it was so late that he really should have been calling it ‘early’.

Gray heaved a heavy sigh and looked up at the clock. “It shouldn’t be long n-now.”

Jonesy looked tearful again, and Mike didn’t know whether or not he wanted to comfort him after he snapped at him. Eric yawned loudly and rubbed his eyes, looking ready to fall asleep sitting upright.

“Is it bad that I’m scared?” Terry asked.

“I hope not, ‘cause I’m scared too,” Eric said, suddenly serious.

“And me,” Gray added. “Medical tr-training doesn’t m-make this sort of t-thing any easier, you know.”

Mike sniffed heavily and wiped his nose again, wishing his body wouldn’t keep trying to cry, because he didn’t want to, not again. Despite what his friends said, Mike was certain that he wasn’t going to break in front of them again, and that he was going to stay strong.


	3. Chapter 3

When John finally came back, it turned out that he was just in time, because only five minutes later, a nurse came into the waiting room, and called out Gilliam’s name. Mike couldn’t have been the only one who saw the relief in his eyes.

“Yes, over here!” Mike called, standing up and waving his hands, even though they were the only ones in the waiting room. He tried to ignore the way his voice kept shaking, and was pleased to note that his friends did too.

The nurse came over to them, a guarded and somewhat puzzled look on her face. “You’re the family of Terrence Gilliam?” She asked, like she didn’t believe him.

Mike met Eric’s eyes, sighing as his partner just grinned sheepishly.

“Yes, miss,” he said, and then immediately backtracked, realising that he hadn’t made sense. “I mean, no we’re obviously not, but his family’s all in America, and we’re the closest he’s got to family over here.”

“I see,” the nurse sighed.

“Can we still see him?” John asked, sounding desperate.

The nurse didn’t look very impressed, but she smiled at them and said, “Yes, I suppose you can.”

“What w-ward is he on?” Gray asked, slipping his bottle of gin back into his pocket.

“The intensive care unit,” she said, and they all groaned. Mike saw John face crumple for a few seconds, but he managed to control himself.

“Damn,” Gray muttered, and Mike didn’t blame him. He knew they’d all been hoping that Gilliam would have shown some signs of improvement, but the fact that he was in intensive care showed that he obviously had not.

“Now, you can all come and see him if you want, but I need you to follow some strict rules.”

“Fine, now can we go?” John said, beginning to bounce slightly on the balls of his feet.

“In a minute, sir,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “But this is important. I need you all to realise that the ICU is sterile, and needs to remain that way to limit the spread of infection. So you’ll need to clean your hands with antiseptic hand wash before you enter, and you can’t come in if you’ve had an infectious illness – even if it’s just a cold – within the last two weeks.”

Mike suddenly noticed that everyone was staring at Eric, and turned to look at him too. He didn’t know exactly what was wrong with his partner, but he did know that he was ill enough to not be allowed to see Terry.

Eric smiled weakly and shrugged his shoulders, but Mike could see he was hurt. “I guess I’ll be staying here then?”

“I’m afraid so,” the nurse said, but she didn’t look it. “But the rest of you can come with me.”

She walked off, and John and Jonesy immediately followed after her, Terry wobbly visibly as he walked. Mike pressed a kiss to Eric’s hot forehead and gave his hand an apologetic squeeze, before getting up and following after them. When he reached the doorway, Mike realised that Gray hadn’t gotten up, and turned back around.

“Gray? Are you coming?”

Graham shook his head. “No, I think I’ll stay with Eric.”

He smiled, his eyes starting to sting again. “Thanks, Gray.”

“’S nothing.”

Giving them both a wave, Mike hurtled off after the rest of his friends, narrowly avoiding a collision with a nurse on the way. He finally found them outside a set of double doors, with a sign above them which said ‘Intensive Care Unit’. John and the others were rubbing hand sanitizer into their hands, and Mike copied them, wishing his heart would stop pounding. He was beginning to feel sick, unsure of what he was going to see, and if he would break down again. He certainly hoped he wouldn’t.

The nurse then opened the doors and led them into the ICU. Mike had never been in one before, but this was not what he thought it would be like. He had expected a ward, but it was actually a long corridor with small rooms leading off of it. He had expected the rooms to be private, but each had a huge internal window, so Mike could clearly see each patient as he walked along the corridor. He had expected the patients to look the way they did, but it still scared Mike to see that they were all unconscious, most of them with masks over their faces or tubes sticking out of their mouths, and lots had nurses and visitors crowded around the beds. He had expected almost deafening silence, but all he could hear was whirring and beeping, making his already sore head throb with every beat of his rapidly pounding heart.

His chest feeling tight, Mike reached for John’s hand and squeezed it hard, and was surprised to find that John didn’t pull away.

After what seemed like hours of walking, the nurse stopped outside one of the rooms, and Mike forced himself to look through the window. And then he felt like he was about to throw up and his eyes stung so badly that he had to blink rapidly to keep the tears back.

“Bloody hell,” Mike said, staring at the man lying unconscious on the bed.

The nurse must have made a mistake; this man couldn’t have been Gilliam. This man had a dressing taped to the side of his head and a tube coming out from under the bandages. This man had thick black stitches in his forehead and bluely black bruises all over the side of his face. This man had his leg in a cast, plastered up to his knee with only his toes exposed. This man’s arm was in a cast up to the elbow, his fingers black and swollen with bruises. This man had electrodes all over his shaved chest, which looked oddly swollen and bruised, and which were attached to a machine that appeared to be showing his very low heart rate. This man had a catheter, a tube sticking out of the leg of his boxers and hooked to a bag on a pole, and numerous other tubes sticking out of the bandages all over his body. This man had a tube down his throat, which was hooked up to yet another machine, making his chest rise and fall. But Mike could see the long, dark hair and the bright green boxer shorts (the only thing he was wearing) and he realised that he was Gilliam. His eyes filled with tears, and Mike quickly wiped them away, not letting himself break down.

Feeling totally dazed, Mike followed after his friends, who had gone into the room while he was thinking, and was surprised to see how spacious the room actually was; even though the room was overflowing with machines, it didn’t seem even slightly crowded. John had collapsed into one of the chairs and was staring blankly at Gilliam’s face, and Jonesy was watching the nurse who was already in the room as she looked at machines and did many things that Mike didn’t understand. His legs felt wobbly, so Mike sat down beside John, noting the tension on the older man’s face.

“What’re you doing?” Terry asked the nurse, his voice shaking.

“Just checking his vital signs,” she smiled.

“Are they normal?”

“His blood pressure’s a little low, but other than that, he’s doing fine.”

Jonesy sighed, sounding genuinely relieved. “That’s good.”

“Can I touch him?” John asked, without taking his eyes off of Terry’s face. He was so pale that he blended in well with the white pillow.

The nurse looked puzzled, but then she smiled. “It should be fine to hold his hand if you want, but mind the IV.”

John nodded slowly and gently tapped the back of Terry’s hand, making sure not to touch the needle sticking out of his skin. Mike wasn’t sure why he was doing it, but he didn’t say anything.

“May I ask how you know Mr Gilliam?” The nurse asked, seeming to be addressing all three of them.

“We’re his friends,” Michael said. But then his curiously got the better of him and added, “Do you really not know who we are?”

She shook her head. “Are you off the telly? Because I don’t own a set.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he smiled, trying to keep his bottom lip from wobbling. “To be honest, it’s a relief to meet someone who doesn’t know who I am, and I’m sure I speak for the others.”

Terry nodded his head, but John must not have heard him, because he didn’t respond.

“But, yes, we’re all friends. We work together.” His throat started closing up as he looked at Terry, wondering if he’d ever be able to do his wonderfully wacky animations for the show again. Or if he’d even wake up. Mike’s lip wobbled and he swallowed hard, managing to keep what little control he still had. Beside him, John was blinking rapidly, but Mike could still see the tears in his eyes.

John suddenly tensed up, hunching forward on the horrible plastic chair. He let go of Gilliam’s hand and pressed a hand to his stomach, using the other to wipe his dampening eyes.

“John, are you all right?” He asked, half expecting a sarcastic answer.

“Sorry, but I think I’m going to vomit, I need to go,” John babbled, jumping to his feet and rushing out of the room.

“Is he . . .?” the nurse trailed off, obviously not knowing what to say.

Jonesy sat down in the now vacant seat, wincing as it must have caused some amount of pain in his arm. “He’s fine. He’s been throwing up ever since the . . . it happened, and I think it’s just a stress thing. He’s not ill or anything like that.”

The nurse sighed, but didn’t say anything else. Mike reached out and touched Terry’s hand, and was surprised to find it rather warm and dry, not cold and clammy, as he’d feared. With his other hand, he linked hands with Jonesy, and found his hand disgustingly sweaty, but he didn’t let go.

He squeezed both Terries’ hands at the same time, but only one responded, and Mike felt tears in his eyes. He hadn’t exactly expected Terry to sit up and start talking, but his fingers didn’t even twitch, instead handing limply in Mike’s grip. Beside him, Jonesy seemed to get what was upsetting him, and he made a strange whimpering sound that told Mike he was near tears too.

“Um, why’s that tube sticking out of his h-head?” Terry asked, and his voice cracked.

“It’s called a drain,” The nurse explained. “Like the ones in his chest and leg, it basically just drains the excess fluids from the wound and helps it to heal. It’s nothing to worry about; if all goes well, it will be taken out in a few days time.”

Terry nodded in understanding, and lowered his head. His head snapped up when a machine suddenly began to bleep loudly, making both of them jump. Mike felt his heart hammering against his ribs, convinced that something awful had happened and that Gilliam was dying, squeezing Jonesy’s hand so hard his friend winced loudly, pulling his hand free.

“What’s happening?” Terry shrieked. Mike couldn’t help but add his own terrified cry.

“What’s wrong with him?”

The nurse immediately started checking all of the machines, moving so quickly that Mike could hardly focus on her, before sighing heavily, and straightening up.

“It’s fine, calm down,” the nurse said, pressing a button on the wall above the headboard. The noise ceased, but neither of them relaxed.

Mike heaved in a shaky breath. “What the hell was that?”

The nurse sighed, not looking very impressed. “It was a false alarm.”

“What do you mean?” Mike said, watching Terry’s chest rise and fall, still not totally convinced that he was indeed not suddenly dying.

“The bleeding ECG alarm went off without a reason to; his heart rate is actually fine.” She must have seen something in their expressions, because she added, “The machines in this hospital aren’t as high-tech as they look, you know, there is the occasional false alarm. That’s an important thing to know if you’re going to be spending a lot of time in the ICU – most of the machines make noises that don’t mean anything, and a lot of the alarms are in fact false.”

“I see,” Mike said, that fact not exactly having reassured him.

Another nurse poked her head into the room. The moment Terry’s nurse saw her, she said, “False alarm.”

The other nurse pulled a face. “Bloody things.” She said, disappearing off again.

Jonesy still looked very freaked out after the false alarm, and the nurse smiled at him, and Mike took his hand again.

“But despite the odd false alarm, sir,” she said, suddenly very serious. “This equipment really does work. Your friend’s in safe hands here, I promise you.”

Terry smiled, but Mike could tell that he didn’t fully believe her. And he wasn’t sure he did either; even though he knew this was the best place their friend could be right now, Mike couldn’t help but worry about what might happen if a machine failed, or he just stopped breathing, or maybe . . .

He was suddenly aware of something shaking his shoulder, and realised that it was Jonesy. And then he realised that tears were dribbling down his face.

“Are you all right, Mike?”

Nodding violently, Mike, furious with himself, quickly scrubbed his face dry.

“Yes,” he lied. “I’m fine.”

He only felt a little better when he saw the tears trickling down Terry’s face.

“You’re about as fine as I am, you bloody sod,” Terry said thickly, and Mike giggled through the tears, even though he didn’t feel like laughing.

But he liked to think that laughing made him feel a little better, although it was hard to feel better when he was sat next to his friend who was on life support, in a coma that even the doctor didn’t know if he would come out of or not.


	4. Chapter 4

Eric had given up trying to sleep after a while – he was too shivery and achy and stressed – and so was sat upright with his feet propped up on the seat opposite, staring blankly at the clock. He kept wondering what Gilliam looked like, and how his friends were doing, and if Mike was still upset. It made his chest hurt to think of his partner crying, but Eric couldn’t help it.

Beside him, Graham was dozing lightly, his head feeling very heavy against Eric’s shoulder. He still had his bottle of gin in his hands, and Eric considered trying to confiscate it, but decided not to. Mainly because he might want a bit later, if things didn’t go too well with Terry, and that wouldn’t be possible if he’d chucked the bottle in the bin at an earlier date.

It was now nine o’clock in the morning, natural light streaming through the small window, and Eric could hear the hospital getting busier. More and more people were rushing past the waiting room, and it made him tense whenever it looked like someone was going to come in, because he didn’t want to talk to anyone other than his friends.

He gave Graham’s arm a gentle shove, but the older man didn’t even stir.

“Fuck you then,” he muttered, shuffling away from Gray so he slumped to the side and ended up with his head on the seat. Even that didn’t wake him, and Eric sighed heavily.

He looked up again when he heard footsteps pounding their way down the corridor, once again anticipating someone coming in and trying to make conversation with him. The footsteps drew nearer, and Eric felt a bit worried, but then the person hurtled straight past the door, and he relaxed again. It took several seconds before Eric realised who the person was; it was John who had just gone hurtling past the waiting room, and he’d had his hand clamped over his mouth like he was about to be sick.

Even though he felt ill, Eric forced himself out of his chair and poked his head out into the corridor, looking in the direction John has just gone. He saw a sign directing visitors to the toilets, and wandered off in that direction, not quite sure what he was going to do when he saw John, and certainly not sure of what John might do when he saw him.

Eric’s legs felt heavy and he pulled his jacket tighter around his arms, but he forced himself to wander down the corridor and around several corners, before he came face to face with the door for the men’s toilets. Taking a deep breath, Eric pushed the surprisingly heavy door open and stumbled into the room.

His eyes scanned past the sinks and urinals, eventually focusing on the only cubical. The door was closed, and he could hear something that sounded suspiciously like someone throwing up. Silently, Eric crept closer, listening hard and easily confirming his thought as the retching became louder and clearer. He stopped outside the cubical, far enough away that he was sure John wouldn’t be able to see his feet, and just listened, not knowing what else to do.

It made him feel awful (well, worse than he was already feeling) to listen to his friend puke, but he didn’t know what he could do to help. He knew John would get angry with him if he was he was there, just like the time he was rowing with Connie on the phone and threw a vase at his head when he came after him, and he didn’t want to get hurt. But he knew that John must have been hurting too, and he had to use a lot of willpower to not call his friend’s name out and offer him a hug.

“Bloody hell,” he heard John groan, and his voice was thick and shaky.

After only a couple of minutes standing unaided, Eric’s legs were really starting to wobble, and he had to lean against the cubical wall to stop himself falling over.

“Bloody fucking fuck,” John muttered thickly between heaves, and Eric just wanted to give the poor sod a cuddle.

After what seemed like an eternity, the retching noises stopped, and Eric heard a scuffling noise that must have been John moving around inside the cubical, but that was hardly unexpected. It was what he heard next that took him by surprise.

John’s breathing started to go shuddery, and a few seconds later he made a squeaking noise that made it sound like he was being throttled, before dissolving into muffled sobs. Eric gasped at the sound, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. John never cried. Yet here he was, crying his eyes out with only a thin partition wall between him and someone who wanted to comfort him, but who he didn’t know was there.

His own eyes filling with tears, Eric decided to risk it, not able to deal with listening helplessly to someone else crying. He took a deep breath and rapped his knuckles against the door.

He heard John’s breathing hitch, and Eric held his own breath.

“Who’s there?” He said, his shaking voice taking any possible venom out of the statement.

“It’s Eric,” he said quietly.

“What the f-fuck d’you want?”

“John, I . . .” Eric trailed off, not quite knowing what he was trying to say. “You’re crying, aren’t you?”

“Of course I’m not!” John snapped, sniffing loudly. Eric couldn’t have been the only one who knew how weak that lie was.

“You are, John,” he said, sighing. “Look, I know this must be really embarrassing for you, and it is for me too, but—”

“How is this embarrassing for you, exactly?” John spat. His voice shook and he took in a deep, shuddering breath, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself crying.

Eric sighed and rubbed his burning forehead. “Look, I admit it, I phrased that badly. But, please, John, let me . . . do something to help, please.”

He didn’t expect an answer, or, if he did, he expected to be told to bugger the fuck off, but a few seconds later, he heard a heavy sigh, and then the door unlocked. It swung inwards, allowing Eric to see his friend for the first time. He was hunched up on the floor beside the toilet, sobbing shakily, with tears openly running down his very red cheeks. The humiliation was written across his face, and Eric smiled sadly, not knowing what to say.

“Would you like a hug?” He asked eventually.

John shrugged his shoulders and wiped his mouth on a handful of tissue, which he then dumped into the toilet bowl. The cubical smelt strongly of vomit, but Eric didn’t back off, even though it was making him feel sick.

“It might help?” He said, watching the tears run down the older man’s cheeks. It was strange to see the two things together like that; ‘John Cleese’ and ‘tears’ were practically an oxymoron.

Continuing to sob, John shrugged again. “If you s-say so.” He stuttered, and Eric took that as a yes.

He stumbled further into the cubical and kneeled down beside his friend, and slowly wrapped his arms around John. The older man sat stiffly for a few seconds, but then shifted to relax against him, pressing his face into Eric’s chest and wrapping his arms around him tightly, his hands tightly gripping at folds in his jacket on his back. John’s sobs were loud and violent, the act of crying making his shoulders heave, and Eric rested his chin on the top of John’s thinning hair, rubbing his heaving back.

As John cried, Eric thought he heard him gasp out fragments of sentences, like “all my fault” and “should’ve helped” and “weak”, but he could have been mishearing, or simply imagining it.

For the first time, Eric thought about what might have made John so upset, and he realised how stupid he had been. This was obviously to do with his trip to intensive care to see Gilliam, and, judging by John’s reaction, their friend obviously wasn’t doing too well. His eyes filled with tears again, but Eric didn’t try to wipe them away, letting the tears trickle down his cheeks and drip onto John’s head. He thought of Michael and if his partner was crying like he did earlier, and if anyone was comforting him. He thought of John and how severe Gilliam’s condition must have been to have made him break down so badly. And he thought about poor Terry, and if he was ever going to be allowed to see him. He thought so much that when John finally pulled away from him, he barely realised that any time had passed at all.

Sniffing heavily, John pulled more toilet paper off of the roll and handed some to Eric. He took it and wiped his eyes, watching as John did the same thing. When he was done, John simply looked at him with the saddest smile Eric had ever seen.

“Thank you,” John said, his voice a bit hoarse.

Eric didn’t know what to say, so he just parroted out a, “You’re welcome,” and smiled back.

After another minute or so, he added, “So, I guess . . . things don’t look so good?”

John swallowed hard and stared at him, his eyes still welling up. “You could say that,” His bottom lip twitched slightly, and he wiped his eyes dry.

“Do, do you want to talk about it?” Eric said, not knowing if he was pressing John too much or not.

John shook his head and wiped his eyes again, even though the act seemed futile to Eric, because they just kept welling up. Sighing, he reached out and patted John’s arm, and John gave him a forced smile in return.

“John?” He asked, remembering something John had said whilst he was crying.

“Hmm?”

“What did you mean when you said it was ‘all your fault’?”

John’s eyes widened slightly, and he broke eye contact, staring into his lap. “I, you, wh—”

“There y-you are, Eric! I’ve been look-looking evr’where for y-you.” Graham announced out of nowhere, suddenly appearing in the cubical doorway. They both jumped, but, upon seeing that it was just Gray, sighed instead.

“Hello, John, I d-didn’t see y-you there. Why’re y-you in here?”

John looked at Eric, and he saw fear in his eyes. He realised that John must not have wanted anyone else to know he had been crying, and smiled quickly, trying to reassure his friend.

Still smiling, Eric turned to Graham, who was looming over them, and said, “I was in here not feeling too good, and then John came in to have a piss, and he saw me crying, and he’s been looking after me ever since.”

“I see,” Graham said, as though he didn’t quite believe his obvious lie. And he didn’t really blame him, because Eric knew how fake that had sounded – if nothing else, Gray should have know he was lying because he mentioned that John was ‘looking after him’, and John would never do something that required so much affection.

“Do you f-feel better n-now?” He asked, and Eric frowned.

“What d’you mean?”

“We-well, you’ve b-been sick, h-haven’t you?”

Eric glanced at John, watching his friend’s face, and once again knew that he needed him to lie for him. “Yeah, I have. But I do feel a bit better now, you know.”

“That’s good,” Graham said, but he didn’t look fully convinced. “Do y-you need a h-hand up?”

Eric nodded, and took the hand Gray held out for him. With surprising strength considering the amount of alcohol he had in his blood, Graham pulled him to his feet. Eric swayed dizzily for a few seconds, and stumbled over to the sinks so he hand something to hang onto.

As he washed his hands, the cold water making him shiver, Eric heard the toilet flush, and then the other two appeared either side of him, washing their hands too. He was slightly disturbed to see how red his cheeks were, and splashed his face with water in the hope that might cool them down. But all that achieved was him soaking his sleeves and the front of his jacket, and goose bumps erupting all over his arms, shivers wracking his body. Gray and John looked at him oddly, but neither of them said anything.

John didn’t speak to him for a while, staying silent as they made their way back to the waiting room, seemingly lost in his thoughts. There was a young couple on the other side of the room, and Eric saw John scowl, but they didn’t talk to them, or even acknowledge that they were there, and that made then all visibly relax a little.

After only a couple of minutes, Gray fell asleep again, and John swapped seats so he was sat next to Eric. A bit confused, Eric watched as the older man quickly took his hand in his own and squeezed it, flashing him a genuine smile.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and, as quickly as he’d arrived, John moved back into his seat opposite him, shoving Graham’s head away from his shoulder. Eric didn’t need to ask what he was thanking him for, and he knew that John really meant it.


	5. Chapter 5

After only about ten more minutes of tearful silence, the first nurse poked her head back into Terry’s room, and smiled at them. Even though he was sure he was being paranoid, part of Mike told him that it wasn’t a friendly smile.

“Hello, Mr Jones and Mr Palin,” she said, and she suddenly looked confused, her eyes scanning the room. “Where’s Mr Cleese?”

Mike was still too choked up to speak, and looked to Terry to give her the answer. Luckily, Jonesy got the hint, and turned to the nurse, not bothering to wipe his face dry.

“He h-had to leave,” He said simply, not elaborating as Mike had thought he might have.

She didn’t look too impressed by his vague answer, but she didn’t press him for more information, and Mike was glad of that, because it really was none of her bloody business.

“I’m afraid I’ve come to kick you out,” she said.

“What? Why?” Terry stuttered, and Mike felt his stomach churn. He didn’t want to leave – they’d only just arrived, for Christ’s sake!

“I did tell you,” the nurse said, and now she sounded so patronising that Mike wanted to scream abuse at her. “You can come back and stay for a couple of hours during visiting hours.”

Terry sniffed and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket. “But that can’t be that long away now, can it? Why can’t we just stay?”

The nurse sighed heavily. “Mr Jones, this is the ICU and we have very strict rules here – you can’t just decide to bypass them when you want to.”

Terry’s nurse, who had been watching their conversation (or argument, depending on whose side you were on) from the sidelines, suddenly spoke up. “Visiting hours are from three o’clock to five thirty,” She said, smiling at them sympathetically. “That’s not too long until you can come back and see him.”

“But . . .” Mike trailed off, not knowing what he was trying to say.

“Fine!” Terry snapped, getting to his feet so suddenly that he stumbled backwards, screwing his eyes up.

“Careful,” Mike said warningly, grabbing his friend’s arm.

After a couple of seconds, Jonesy opened his eyes, but he still didn’t look right. “Head rush.” He said, and Mike relaxed a bit, knowing that something like that was normal and nothing to worry about. Then he turned back to the nurse, and added, “Fine then, we’ll go. Come on Mike.”

But Michael sat where he was, staring at Gilliam and wondering if what he was thinking made any sense. It probably didn’t, but he still turned to the kind nurse and asked, “Can I talk to him?”

“I don’t know if he’ll be able to hear you, and he definitely won’t be able to respond, but there’s no harm in trying.” She said.

Even though it made him feel a bit of an idiot, Mike still leaned forwards in his chair, trying to get as close to Gilliam as he could without touching any of the equipment.

“Hello, Terry,” he said, already getting embarrassed. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but we’re going now. But we’ll be coming back soon, I promise.” He picked up Terry’s hand and squeezed it gently, wishing that his fingers would twitch or something. Sighing, he carefully put his hand back on the bed, and got to his feet, still not looking away from his friend.

The arsey nurse raised her eyebrows. “If you’ll follow me,” she said, and Mike and Jonesy followed after her, Mike grabbing onto Jonesy’s arm to keep them both steady.

Terry pulled a face at her behind her back, and Mike had to stifle his giggles. But he didn’t mind; it certainly made a change from fighting back tears.

When they exited the ICU, the nurse made them rub sanitizer into their hands again, and Mike realised that Terry couldn’t do it on his own, and must have gotten help from John last time. Smiling at him, Mike pumped too much gel into his cupped hand, and rubbed his hands together, before sandwiching Terry’s free hand between both of his, and rubbing the excess gel onto it for him. The nurse looked at them with an unreadable expression, but the grateful smile Terry gave Michael was all too easy to read.

“Do you know your way back to the waiting room from here?” The nurse said, and Mike nodded.

“Yes, I think so,” Terry said, not sounding certain. But that seemed good enough for the nurse, who buggered off without so much as a goodbye, leaving them alone.

A bit bemused, they headed off back to the waiting room, Mike taking hold of Terry’s hand again and squeezing it hard. But even though it was reassuring to have Jonesy squeeze his hand back, Mike couldn’t help but tear up when he thought of Gilliam, and how his fingers hung limp and unresponsive in his grip.

“Are you all right, Mike?” Terry asked, and had Mike been anyone else, he probably would have snapped at him for asking such a bloody stupid question. But, because he was Michael ‘Nice Guy’ Palin, he smiled instead, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Guess so.” He said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

“That nurse was a bitch, wasn’t she?” Terry said, and this time, Mike let himself giggle. Terry spluttered too, and soon they were both howling with laughter, only stopping when a nurse came storming up to them, her arms folded across her chest.

“Will you please be quiet?” She snapped. “This is a hospital, you know.”

Mike pressed his lips together, desperately trying not to laugh, but he couldn’t quite manage it, feeling like he did practically every day on the set of Flying Circus when someone else (usually John) made him corpse. Terry had a bit more control, but the corners of his mouth kept twitching like he was desperate to smile, and when he spoke, his voice was shaking.

“Sorry, we’ll try to be quieter.”

Mike expected the nurse to walk off, but instead she stood and looked at them, her eyes widening.

“Are you Terry Jones and Michael Palin?” She said, and Mike fought back a groan, all of his suppressed laughter gone.

Terry feigned confusion, and manipulated his accent so he sounded faintly Cornish, although that probably wasn’t the accent he was going for. “No, I think you must be mistaken.”

She tilted her head slightly to one side. “But—”

Terry suddenly started walking, pulling Mike with him so fast he stumbled, and hurried off, leaving the nurse staring at empty space. When they had turned the corner, he slowed down, and said over his shoulder, “I can’t be arsed with all that crap right now, Mike, I really can’t.”

Mike raised his eyebrows, slightly shocked by Terry’s behaviour, but he didn’t blame him. “I know what you mean.”

He was out of breath when they finally got back to the waiting room, where they found John and Eric staring into space, and Graham asleep beside John, as well as a couple in the far corner, who, thankfully, ignored them. John’s eyes looked swollen, and Eric’s didn’t look much better.

“Hi, guys, how’d it go?” Eric asked when he noticed them.

Sighing, Mike slid into the seat beside Eric and wrapped an arm around his waist. He could feel him shivering. “Not great.”

Jonesy sat down on his other side, staring at Graham as he slept. Mike noted that he’d barely taken his eyes off of Graham since he first saw them both in A and E, and part of him wondered if there was a reason why. “That fucking nurse is such a bitch, it’s unreal,” he said, the sharp tone of his voice seeming to pull John out of his daydream.

“What one?”

Terry sighed, beginning to gesture with his free hand. “You know, the one who took us down to intensive care.”

John nodded in understanding, but didn’t elaborate.

“Why?” Eric asked.

“She barely let us stay with Gilliam, and then got arsey when we tried to ask to stay a bit longer.”

John looked over at the clock, and his eyes widened. “Bloody hell, I thought you’d been gone longer than that.”

“I know,” Terry agreed. “It’s not fair, is it?”

“Apparently, we can come back for visiting hours, though,” Mike added, trying to say something encouraging.

“And when are they?”

He strained to remember what the nurse had told him, wondering if it was the lack of sleep making his memory so poor, but finally found the information he was thinking of. “Three ‘till five thirty.”

“Is that all?” John moaned.

“At least you can go in,” Eric muttered, and John scowled at him, but he didn’t say anything sarcastic like the others thought he might have.

Mike shrugged his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not great, but I guess it’s better than nothing.”

“So,” Eric said after a couple of minutes of silence. “What should we do now?” No one answered him, and Mike suspected that the others were just being rude and ignoring him, whereas he just didn’t have anything to say. “Well, I’ve got an idea. I think we should all go back to mine and Mike’s for a rest, and then we can come back to see Terry at three o’clock.”

The other two didn’t look very impressed, and Mike didn’t feel that impressed himself; really, he knew that Eric was right, and that it was best for all of them to have a rest and actually have a drink before they collapsed from dehydration, but he didn’t want to leave Gilliam, and he was pretty sure that was what John and Jonesy were thinking too.

Still, he forced himself to smile at Eric and said, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” His tone of voice was wooden and sounded fake as the words were, but Eric still smiled back.

Michael expected the other two to put up more of a fight than him, though, so he was amazed when John and Terry both shrugged.

“Fine,” John mumbled. “As long as we come back.”

“As long as we do come back, I guess we can do that,” Jonesy said, at exactly the same time.

When they realised that they’d both said exactly the same thing, John and Terry looked at each other for a few seconds, smiling slightly, before they seemed to realise something, and looked back into their laps, looking close to tears once again.

Eric smiled at him and started trying to wake Graham up, but it made Mike feel more worried than relieved to see John and Terry behaving so passively. That wasn’t like his friends; he sort of wanted them to start a fight, just so he could pretend that everything was all right. But they didn’t, and Mike fought back a sigh, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to hide from this shitty situation as he had hoped. No, it wasn’t going to be that easy, and he knew that he’d have to just accept it at some point, but, right now, he just wanted to deny it so much, because, somehow, that made it easier to deal with, even if it wasn’t true. Which, he realised, as he thought about his friend in the ICU and his other friends acting so subdued, it definitely wasn’t.

\---------

“Look, I need the front seat, because I’ve got long legs,” John said, blocking Jonesy as he tried to get into the passenger seat of Mike and Eric’s car.

Mike, already in the driver’s seat, looked up expectantly, once again hoping they might have a row like they usually did.

“Have it then,” Terry muttered, and he got into the back seat beside Eric. Mike sighed heavily and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Graham sat on Eric’s other side, behind Mike, and Mike heard a thump as he leaned his head against the window. John got into the passenger seat, and the expression on his face told Mike that he was just as surprised for Jonesy to have not argued with him as he was. After all, it wasn’t really fair for John to get the front seat, considering that the other three were either ill, injured or drunk to the point that they might throw up, but John didn’t say anything about it, and neither did anyone else.

The drive back to his house was awkward, to say the least. Nobody spoke, and all Mike could hear was Eric and Gray breathing heavily, and the odd pained groan from Jonesy. In an attempt to drown out the silence, Mike switched on the radio, and found himself relaxing slightly as he listened to the awful music that their local station always seemed to play. A quick glance in his rear view mirror showed Mike that Eric was mouthing along to the song, and he smiled.

When the song ended, the host started chatting to someone who had phoned in, and then played a few advertisements, and then after that, they started reading news stories. And then they said something that made Mike freeze up.

“. . . _In the early hours of the morning, three men were injured in a road traffic collision outside a club in Hammersmith. . .”_

“Is that . . .?” Jonesy said.

“Ssh!” Mike hissed, drawing to a halt at a set of traffic lights. He gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white.

“. . . _police say that the driver collided with a pedestrian after mounting the pavement. The driver and another victim were treated in hospital for minor injuries and were later discharged, but the third man suffered severe injuries and is in a critical condition. The driver is currently being questioned by the police and . . .”_

Mike switched the radio off again, his eyes filling with tears and blurring his vision. He quickly blinked so his vision cleared and he could drive safely, and the tears dribbled down his cheeks.

“Was that . . .?” Gray said, before trailing off. Mike heard him sigh heavily, and a quick glance in the mirror showed him that Graham was blinking rapidly, his eyes shining with tears.

“Yes, Gray,” John said, not snapping as Mike would have thought he would, instead sounding weary and slightly tearful.

“I didn’t know the driver went to hospital,” Eric said.

“Yes, the poor twat got his face smashed in on his steering wheel, and the police took him to hospital in the other car.” John said, with such heavy sarcasm that Mike almost smiled.

“What do you mean ‘the other car’?”

John sighed and began to talk with no emotion in his voice, as though he really didn’t want to say it. “When the police arrived, they had two cars. They gave us a lift in one, and took that bastard in the other.”

“Ah,” Eric said, sighing and leaning back against his seat. “I guess that makes sense.”

“I th-think they w-were trying to s-separate us,” Gray said thickly, surprising Mike, who had thought he’d fallen asleep again.

John clenched his hands into fists and hunched forwards in his seat. “He was drunk, you know.”

“What?” Mike said, deciding to speak up for the first time.

“He was drunk,” John’s voice was wobbling slightly, but Mike couldn’t tell if it was caused by him being angry or upset. “The fucking driver. He was driving drunk.”

“How could you tell?” Eric asked.

“When he got out of the car, loads of bottles fell out and shattered,” Jonesy said, like he was feeling sick just thinking about it.

“Bloody hell,” Eric breathed.

“I know, it’s fucking awful, isn’t it?”

Mike swallowed hard, not sure what to say. It was hard to believe that someone could have caused such a devastating accident just because they didn’t want to let someone else drive them home. But it certainly made him hate the bastard he’d never met with much more venom now he knew that it was definitely all his fault.


	6. Chapter 6

The moment he entered the living room at Michael and Eric’s house, John collapsed into the nearest chair, kicked his shoes off and leaned his head back, trying to rest his aching neck. He couldn’t remember a time when he felt this tired, not even when he was at Cambridge, and under far too much pressure to turn in work, and not even when he was writing tonnes of material for little to no recognition or pay in the early sixties. He yawned and rubbed his burning eyes, trying to ignore the foul taste in his mouth that had been there ever since he’d been sick.

Michael wandered off into the kitchen, and the others sat down on the sofa, Gray looking like he was about to fall asleep, Eric shivering, and Jonesy grimacing as he had just jarred his arm. John remembered what his arm had looked like before it had been sorted out, and felt sick again. And then he remembered the huge pool of blood around Gilliam’s head and his contorted limbs and . . . he had to swallow hard to stop himself throwing up, right there in Mike and Eric’s living room. He shook his head hard, trying not to think about it.

When Mike came back into the room, he was carrying a tray full of mugs of tea, with a packet of biscuits tucked under his arm.

“Now, before any of you say anything, we all need a drink and a snack or we’ll keel over,” He said, putting the tray down on the coffee table and plonking into the other armchair.

“Yes, mum,” Gray said, and Mike threw the packet of biscuits at him, which, somehow, he managed to catch. Gray studied the packet closely, and then grinned. “Yum, custard cr-creams – they’re my favourite.” John wondered what it was like to be so easily pleased.

He pulled the packet open and began munching on a custard cream, and passed the packet to Eric. Eric didn’t look like he wanted a biscuit, but he still took one and took a bite, at the same time taking another out and pressing it into Jonesy’s hand. Terry smiled gratefully, and handed the packet to John. Groaning, he forced himself to eat it, even though his stomach was churning, but at least it got the horrible taste out of his mouth.

Mike was glancing around the room, looking awkwardly like he wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say. To be honest, John was glad to have the silence after being stuck in that noisy hospital. Although he still wanted to go back, of course he did, but that didn’t mean he had to like the place.

John looked up when he heard Eric groan, wondering what was wrong with him. Michael had said he was ill, but none of them actually knew what was making him feel unwell. But when he looked at the younger man properly, John realised what was making him groan; he had a hand clamped over his mouth, and looked like he was about to be sick. And John wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

“Are you all right, Eric?” Jonesy said, and John considered telling him that that was a bloody stupid question, but he didn’t have the strength.

Michael looked up at Jonesy’s words, and almost dropped his tea. “Shit, Eric, what’s wrong?”

John sighed, unable to keep his mouth shut this time. “For God’s sake, Mike, he’s about to throw up.”

Eric nodded his head and murmured in what John assumed was agreement. John saw him swallow, only to heave again, his cheeks bulging. Eric scrabbled to his feet, but he was so wobbly that he didn’t move very fast.

“Crap, I see what you mean. Bloody hell.” Mike babbled, not seeming to know what he was doing. He plonked his mug onto the coffee table and jumped to his feet. “Shit.” He took hold of Eric’s free hand and led him out of the room, having to support him under one arm when he saw how badly his legs were wobbling. “Bloody hell. It’s all right, mate.”

A few seconds later, John heard the disgusting sound of Eric vomiting. He wrinkled his nose and looked over at Graham and Jones, who were both staring at him.

“What do you think’s wrong with him?” Terry asked. John shrugged, trying to ignore the urge to snap at him for asking such stupid questions. Not to mention the fact that he was worrying about Eric when Gilliam was in a coma in the hospital. To be honest, everything Jones did seemed to irritate John, and the accident only seemed to have intensified that.

“I d-don’t know,” Gray slurred, shrugging too. “Probably a stomach b-bug. Nothing s-serious.”

John tried to make small talk with them in an attempt to drown out the sound of Eric throwing up, but his heart was pounding, because he remembered how Eric had helped him when he broke down earlier, but was not doing anything to help him back.

Although at least Eric had Michael; he had no one.

\----------

When Eric stopped throwing up, Mike helped his partner to his feet and insisted that he go to bed. Eric didn’t argue, so Mike put his arm around Eric’s waist and led him towards the stairs. They had to go through the living room, where the other three stared at them, Gray and Terry looking concerned, and John looking a bit worried, although Mike couldn’t be sure.

“How’re you f-feeling, Eric?” Gray asked, shuffling forwards in his seat so he could look at him properly.

Eric shrugged and tried to smile. “I’ve been better.”

Eric was disturbingly weak, and needed help to get his shoes and trousers off, but they managed it, just about, and Eric flopped into bed, burrowing under the blankets and shivering.

“Thanks, Mike,” he said.

Mike touched his burning cheek and smiled, even though seeing him like this made him want to cry. “It’s nothing.”

He turned to leave, but Eric grabbed his hand, interlocking their fingers so Mike couldn’t move. He sighed, feigning irritation, and sat down on the bed beside Eric, beginning to ruffle his hair.

“I’m sorry about this, Mike,” Eric said.

“What? You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” Mike said, giving Eric’s clammy hand a squeeze as though to reinforce his point.

“No, I just mean . . . you know all the crap that’s happened? Well, we should all be worrying about Gilliam, and Jonesy too, but you’re just worrying about me. And I don’t think that’s fair.”

Mike sighed, not knowing how to respond, because, really, he knew Eric was right. It did seem trivial and unfair to worry about someone with a stomach bug when their friends had been in a serious accident, but Eric was his partner, and he had a right to worry about him.

“I’m worrying about all of you,” he finally said, rubbing the back of his neck as he felt it twinge. “You know what I’m like.”

Eric smiled weakly. “Yeah, I certainly do.”

Not knowing what else to say, Mike sighed and tried his best to smile. “I’ll be back up in a bit, mate. Just yell if you need me.”

He kissed Eric’s forehead and stood up, watching Eric burrow further under the sheets, pulling the sheets right up over his head. Mike turned to leave for a second time, and jumped when he saw Graham was stood in the doorway, watching him.

“Bloody hell, Gray, you scared the shit out of me!” He gasped, and Eric pulled the sheet off of his head to see what was going on.

“Sorry,” Gray slurred, sounding like he meant it. He was having to lean heavily against the doorframe to stay on his feet, and Mike wondered just how much gin he’d drunk.

When his heart stopped pounding, Mike glanced quickly at Eric, who had covered his head again, and sighed heavily. “That’s all right,” he said, part of him wishing that he didn’t have to be so bloody nice all the time. “What’re you doing in here, anyway?”

“Just t-thought you might w-want these,” Gray said, holding up their large, plastic mixing bowl and a big glass of water that only seemed to be slightly spilt.

He took them off Gray before he could drop them, placing the bowl and glass on the bedside table. “Thanks, Gray.”

“Do y-you have a ther-ther-thermometer?” Gray asked, stumbling further into the room.

Mike nodded. He’d used it yesterday evening to take Eric’s temperature when he was just beginning to heat up, and so it was still where he left it: in the top draw of the bedside table. He took it out and handed it to Gray, not bothering to ask him why he wanted it.

“Here you are,” he said. When Gray took it from his hand, Mike noticed something for the first time; Gray had what looked like congealed blood trapped under his fingernails, and it made Mike feel a bit sick when he realised who’s blood it must have been. “Gray, is that blood under your nails?” He asked, even though he didn’t really want the answer.

Graham looked closely at his fingers, and pulled a face. “Yes.”

Mike expected him to elaborate, but he didn’t. Instead, Gray sat down on the side of the bed and tried to get Eric’s attention.

“Eric,” he said, shaking Eric’s shoulder through the sheets. “C-can I take your temperature?”

Eric shuffled so his flushed face was exposed, and opened his mouth without asking any questions, letting Gray somewhat clumsily put the end of the thermometer under his tongue. Mike watched, feeling a bit anxious again as he wondered if Eric’s temperature had gone up.

After the required thirty seconds, Gray took the saliva coated thermometer out of Eric’s mouth and looked at the reading.

“What is it?” Mike asked expectantly.

“Thirty eight point five,” Gray said, and Mike relaxed a little, knowing that was not a major cause for concern.

“That’s good, I guess,” he said.

“It could be worse,” Gray agreed, and Eric smiled.

After giving Eric a kiss on the cheek, he and Gray left his ill partner alone in the room, and made to go downstairs.

“Mike,” Gray said, grabbing hold of his arm as they reached the top of the stairs. “D’you h-have a nail b-brush?”

“Yeah, it’s under the sink,” He replied, and Graham stumbled across the landing and into the bathroom. But instead of going downstairs too, Mike went into the bathroom after him, and watched his friend scrub at his nails in an attempt to get rid of the blood. “You know, Gray,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me, but can I ask why you’ve got blood under your nails?”

He saw Gray’s reflected face tense up slightly, but this time, he got an answer. “My h-hands just got covered in i-it. I’ve w-washed them loads of ti-times since, but I couldn’t g-get it out fr-from under my nails.”

Mike took a deep breath, not sure what to say. He knew that they were talking about Gilliam, but he didn’t know why Gray’s hands got so bloody. He didn’t know enough about the accident, and, even though he knew asking Gray about it couldn’t end well (and that he would never make such a stupid decision if he wasn’t so sleep deprived), his curiosity got the better of him. “Why did your hands get covered in blood, exactly?”

“Tr-trying to do f-first aid on Terry,” Gray said, only confusing Michael further.

“What? Gray, I don’t understa—”

“He h-had a fucking hole in his h-head!” Gray suddenly yelled, his voice cracking as he span around to glare at Mike, his eyes wide and his jaw clenched. Mike recoiled from him, banging his back into the doorframe. “I had to p-press my han-handkerchief against his fucking h-head because blood was pouring ev-everywhere, Mike, fucking everywhere. Look at my fu-fucking sleeves!” He pulled up the sleeves of his black jacket and exposed the cuffs of his long sleeved, white shirt, which were stained dark brown with dried blood. “And I c-couldn’t stop it.” His voice cracked again, and his eyes filled with tears. “I should’ve b-been able to help him, but . . .”

Gray trailed off and turned away from Mike, but he could still see his reflection, watching helplessly as Gray broke down, tears dribbling down his cheeks and sobs catching in his throat.

“Bloody hell, Gray, I didn’t mean to—” Mike started, but Gray cut him off them moment he touched his shoulder.

“Leave me a-alone, please.”

Even though he wanted to comfort his friend, partly to say sorry for what he’d just done, but also because Gray helped him when he broke down in the early hours of the morning, Mike did what Graham said, and wandered out of the bathroom, trying to blink back and wishing he wasn’t so bloody sensitive.

“What’s happening?”

Mike looked up and saw Eric stood in the doorway of their bedroom, a sheet wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. He blinked blearily at him, confusion written across his face.

Still able to hear Gray crying, Mike took a step backwards and shut the bathroom door, and then went over to his partner. “Nothing, mate, go back to bed.”

When Eric didn’t move, Mike folded his arms across his chest and raised his eyebrows, glad that he was a reasonably good actor at times like this, when his emotions were threatening to overwhelm him. “Eric, go to bed,” he said firmly, managing to do a fairly good impression of his mother.

Eric still didn’t look convinced, but he stumbled back across the bedroom and collapsed on the bed, holding his stomach. Mike tucked him under the covers and kissed his sweaty hair, and then his forehead.

“I heard Gray shouting,” he said, taking the glass of water from Mike and having a small sip of water. It seemed to make him queasy, but, thankfully, he wasn’t sick.

“We . . . we had a bit of a row,” Mike said, and Eric seemed to perk up a little. “It wasn’t anything important, and we’re fine now, really.” He felt guilty for lying, but it worked; Eric gave him the glass and snuggled down under the blankets without asking him anymore questions.

Sighing, Mike went back out onto the landing and pressed his ear to the bathroom door, and felt tearful when he heard that Gray was crying. Not knowing what else to do, Mike went back into their bedroom and clamoured into bed beside Eric. Even though he felt like crap, he fell asleep almost instantly, snuggling his head against Eric’s chest.

\--------

Eric sat bolt upright in bed as his stomach rolled, shivers wracking his body. He felt sick to his stomach, and reached for the bowl on his bedside table. After only a few seconds, he was emptying his already empty stomach into the bowl, his throat burning and his eyes watering.

When it was over, he looked to the other side of the bed, expecting to find Mike looking at him, but no one was there. It was only when he put the bowl back on the table that he saw the note. His hands shaking, Eric picked it up and read it.

_Sorry to leave you, but I’ve gone to the hospital with the others. We’ll be back at six. See you later. Mike xxx_

Groaning, Eric flopped back onto the bed. A quick glance at the wall told him it was only four thirty, and he wished that Mike was here. He knew that made him seem horribly self centred, but that didn’t stop him feeling tearful as he curled up on his side in a trembling, shivering ball, wishing that his partner was here to comfort him.


	7. Chapter 7

Going back to the hospital was easily one of the hardest things John had ever done. He felt sick as Michael pulled the car into a parking space, staring out of the window at the multi-storey building looming before him. He knew Gilliam’s room was on the third floor, and tried to work out which window was his, but he couldn’t tell.

Mike jumped out of the car and headed off to the nearest parking metre, and John turned around in his seat to look at Jones and Gray, who had fallen asleep again, his head resting on Terry’s shoulder. His writing partner’s closed eyelids were red and swollen, and it looked like he’d been crying, but he didn’t say anything. Beside him, Jones was staring out of the window, but he didn’t look much better. The bruise of his forehead was beginning to look really nasty, and must have been causing him a certain level of pain. But then John remembered that Gilliam’s own head injury was much worse, and decided that he didn’t care about Jones.

Terry noticed him looking at him, but averted his eyes, obviously not wanting to talk, which was fine with John, who didn’t want to talk to him either. They sat in awkward silence until Michael returned, putting a ticket on the dashboard.

“Thirty pence for a three hour ticket,” Mike said. “What a rip off.”

“At least we got a space,” Jones said, and John had to agree with that; he’d expected them not to get a space either, what with the hospital having far too small a car park for the amount of people who came to visit the patients.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. Terry, can you wake Gray up for me?”

Jones nodded and began to shake Gray’s arm with his free hand. Eventually, Gray stirred, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. He blinked blearily, and then looked out of the window. When he seemed to realise where they were, he suddenly didn’t look so out of it.

“Right then,” Mike said, and now he looked tense, almost reluctant. “Let’s go.”

It made John feel a bit better when he realised that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t really want to be here.

\----------

They got a bit lost on the way, but the four of them eventually found their way to the doors to the ICU. Just like before, they went through the motions of disinfecting their hands, and pushed open the double doors. A nurse came out of the small office right next to the doors and smiled at them; John recognised her as the nurse who had been in Terry’s room in the night, and smiled back, even though he didn’t really feel like it.

“Hello,” Michael said, smiling an equally forced smile. “We’re here to see Terry Gilliam.”

She nodded, still smiling. “Yes, I guessed that. He’s still in the same room, and I presume you still know the rules.”

“Yes, I think so,” Mike said, and she went back into the office. With a real feeling of dread, John followed after Mike and Jones, and Gray tagged on at the end, as he was the only one who didn’t know where he was going.

When they reached the right room, John stared through the window, and sighed. Terry looked exactly the same as when he last saw him, unconscious and with a huge tube sticking out of his mouth. He knew he needed the tube to breathe, but John hated the fact that he couldn’t see most of his face, and what he could see was horribly bruised. He started to feel sick again, but he hoped he wouldn’t be sick this time.

Michael stopped in the doorway and turned around to look at him. “Are you coming in then, John?”

“Yes,” he nodded and tried his best to smile naturally.

“You know, John, you are allowed to feel worried about—”

“Worried, me? Ha!” He said, inwardly cringing at how fake his words sounded, and Michael didn’t look convinced.

Mike smiled sadly. “Whatever, mate. Just come on in.”

His chest feeling tight, John followed Mike into the room, and plonked down into one of the two chairs, the other of which was occupied by Jones. Graham was studying the readings on all of the horribly loud machines, but John relaxed slightly when he saw Gray give a satisfied smile.

“He’s doing fine,” Gray said, and he stumbled across the room to look out of the window.

John stretched his aching legs and leaned forwards in his seat, staring at Gilliam. He felt his eyes start to sting, remembering the conversation the two of them had had only a couple of minutes before the accident. It made him feel like shit to realise that the last words he said to Terry were downright nasty, and that he never got to say goodbye. But then that was incorrect, because Terry wasn’t gone; he was right there in front of him. And then he hated himself for wallowing in self pity, because how could he pity himself when he was the reason Gilliam stormed off, angry and upset by his words, and hurried off outside, where he . . .

“The nurse said we could touch him, you know,” Jones said. John didn’t bother to respond, but he was grateful for the information. But then he realised that if Gilliam hadn’t pushed him out of the way, he might not be in a coma right now, and decided that Jones didn’t deserve his gratitude. In fact, part of him, the part that made him act like such an arsehole to Gilliam, wished that Jones had been hit instead. And he didn’t even care how horrible that thought sounded, because it was sort of true.

Even though it made him feel silly, he carefully reached out and took hold of Gilliam’s hand, making sure not to knock the horrible needle sticking out of the back of it. He interlocked his fingers with Terry’s, surprised to find his hand feeling warm, but disturbed to find his fingers hanging limp in his grip.

He jumped when someone laid their hands on his shoulders, and turned around to give them a glare. “Do you mind, Graham?”

Gray let go of him, raising his eyebrows. “Sorry, old chap.”

“You can talk to him if you want,” Michael said, from his new position on the floor, leaning against the radiator.

“What?”

“The nurse said we could talk to him. Don’t know if he can actually hear us, and he certainly can’t reply, but we can still try.” Mike smiled. “I had a quick chat to him before the nurse kicked us out.”

“What did you talk about?”

Mike shrugged. “Not much. I just told he we needed to go and that we were going to come back.”

John thanked him, but knew that he couldn’t say what he wanted to tell Terry with all the others listening. But it still made him feel a bit better to know he could give Terry the apology that he should have given him in the first place.

So, instead, he just tried to make small talk, even though he was feeling more and more like bursting into tears. He shuffled forwards in his seat and gave Terry’s hand a squeeze, disheartened to get no response.

“Hello, Terry, it’s John,” he said, feeling very awkward. “I . . . I just . . . you, I . . . Bloody hell, I can’t do this, Mike!” He snapped, letting go of Gilliam’s hand and turning around. “He obviously can’t hear me, so what’s the point?”

“Don’t think like that, o-old boy,” Graham said.

“He’s right, John,” Jones said, and John glared at him.

“You can shut it for a start!” He hissed, his heart beginning to race.

“John, stop it,” Michael said, standing up and coming over to where he and Jones were sat. “They’re right, we need to stay positive. It won’t do us any good to act like the worst is going to happen.”

John clenched his hands into fists, letting out a breath through clenched teeth. He wanted to argue back, to have a huge row and tell everyone exactly what he thought of them, but then he looked over at Gilliam, and, thinking about what had happened when he was mean to him, he managed not to say anything.

\----------

Mike stretched his stiff arms above his head and yawned. He was so tired, but he wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he got back home, and even then, Eric was likely to spend the whole night throwing up, so sleep didn’t seem too likely. He wondered how long one could go without sleep, and made a mental note to ask Graham about it at a later date.

He was about to get up to stretch his legs when something occurred to him. “Guys,” he said. “We haven’t actually called anyone yet, have we?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Gray said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, we said we were going to phone, I think it was, Neil and Carol, but we never actually got ‘round to it.” Jonesy said.

“Does anyone else really need to know?” John asked, not looking very impressed.

“I guess not,” Mike said, but then he remembered why he’d asked the question in the first place, and added, “What about his parents?”

“I’ll field that one,” Gray said, standing up from his position on the floor and leaning against Mike’s chair for support. “He wouldn’t w-want us to phone them, and they p-probably wouldn’t want us too either.”

“What?” Mike said, confused.

“Why?” Jonesy added, looking just as confused. Even John seemed to be paying attention now, actually turning away from Gilliam so he could see Graham, his eyes wide.

“What do you know, Graham?”

Gray sighed and wiped his sweaty forehead on the back of his hand. “Terry once told m-me about the rel-relationship he has with his parents.”

“When was this?” John said, and Mike could have sworn that he sounded jealous, as though he wanted to be the one Gilliam had entrusted with a secret.

“Last year,” Gray said. “He was drunk - so was I, actually.”

“You don’t say,” John muttered, but they all ignored him.

“And he got a bit w-weepy, you know,” Gray continued, and Mike nodded, knowing that Terry had a tendency to get upset when he was drunk. “And he t-told me, he told me h-his mum and d-dad hate him. And I asked why, and he . . .” Gray suddenly stopped, an unreadable look crossing his face.

“And he what?” Jonesy pressed, and Mike had much the same thought, even though he didn’t say anything.

“I’ve just remembered that he, he didn’t w-want me to tell you,” Gray said, and Terry sighed heavily, and Mike didn’t blame him. John was just staring at Gray with an odd look on his face, but Mike saw his hands were trembling.

“But anyway, h-he said they d-don’t speak anymore, so, so he wouldn’t want them to know what happened, and they p-probably don’t either.”

“But he’s their _son_ ,” Mike said, feeling a bit sick. He thought of his own parents, who loved him even though he was gay, something he never thought would have happened. And then it occurred to him that what Gray had described sounded extremely similar to Eric’s experience with _his_ parents . . . but that couldn’t be it, could it?

“That doesn’t mean anything, mate, trust me,” Jonesy said, but his eyes were on John, who was still staring at Gray.

“Gray,” Mike said, not quite sure why he was saying it. “Is Gilliam gay?”

“What?” Gray said, but his face gave him away; the expression that crossed his face told Mike that he’d hit on the right answer.

“Is he gay? Is that why his parents don’t like him?”

“Damn,” Gray said, and he almost chuckled.

“Really?” Jonesy said.

Gray nodded, looking guilty now. “Yes. He’s going to k-kill me now, isn’t he?”

John looked over at Gilliam, and his face was so tense that he looked like he might burst into tears at any minute, but Mike had no idea what might have upset him. Maybe it was the reference to Gilliam killing Gray, which seemed unlikely considering his condition. Or maybe it was something else.

“Bloody hell, are any of us actually straight?” Mike said, more to himself than anyone else, and both John and Terry looked away from him very quickly. He didn’t get an answer.

“So anyway,” Gray said, clearly trying to get the conversation back on track. Mike found it hard to concentrate, more interested in the thought that he could now say two thirds of Monty Python were gay (or bi, if they were Eric) instead of just half.

John suddenly stood up, clenching his hands into tight fists. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, and he left the room. Mike wondered if he was going to cry again, and if he should go after him. He decided not to, even though it made him feel bad, and turned back to Gray.

“So we won’t be phoning his parents, then?” he said, even though he knew the answer.

“Not unless we want to ge-get told to fuck off,” Gray said, sighing.

“You know, Eric’s parents are the same,” Mike said, feeling a bit tearful as he thought about how upset Eric had been when they returned the birthday card he sent to his father last year. “They won’t talk to him anymore.”

“It’s not fair, is it?”

Mike looked over at the man lying on the bed, and wondered why that arsehole had to have driven drunk. “No, it’s not.”


	8. Chapter 8

Bored out of his mind and desperate for company, Eric forced himself to shuffle over to Michael’s side of the bed, and grabbed the telephone. His hands shook and his stomach churned, but he managed to dial the number he wanted, and Eric held the phone to his ear. As he waited for them to pick up, he started to shiver again, and pulled the blankets right up to his chin, twisting around so he couldn’t see the bowl full of his own vomit.

Finally, just when he was about to hang up, he got a response. “Hello?”

“Hello, Carol, how are you?”

“Eric . . . are you all right?” Carol Cleveland said, the concern audible in her voice. “You don’t sound very good.”

“Well, I might as well admit that I’m not feeling very well,” he said bashfully, so glad to be talking to another human being that he almost forgot about his nausea.

“You poor thing! What’s the matter?”

Eric shrugged, realising after he did it that she couldn’t see him. “We don’t really know. Probably one of those stomach bugs.”

“They are horrible, aren’t they?” Carol’s voice was sympathetic, and Eric found himself remembering how his mother used to treat him when he felt unwell. If only she still did that now. If only she still talked to him.

“Yes . . . although, that’s not really what I’ve called about,” Eric said, wishing that he wasn’t the one who had to break the news.

“It isn’t?”

“No,” he sighed, trying to stop his teeth chattering. “You see, Mike and the others are all up at the hospital.”

He heard Carol gasp. “What? Eric, what’s happened?”

“Last night, when the others were out, there was an accident.”

“Jesus Christ, Eric, what happened?” Carol babbled, and Eric remembered how he had acted when Mike was on the phone to Graham in the night.

“I don’t know all the details, but, basically, a drunk driver mounted the pavement, and hit Gilliam.”

He thought Carol might be crying, but had no idea how to console her. “Bloody hell. How is he?”

“Not good,” Eric said. He was beginning to feel sick again, his stomach rolling. “He’s i-in intensive care, on a ventilator.”

He was certain that she was crying now; he could hear horrible shaking sobs coming down the line.

“I don’t . . . Eric . . . what, I, I . . .” Carol dissolved into hysterical sobs, and Eric had no idea what she was saying.

“Carol, please don’t cry.”

His eyes began to sting, and Eric found himself blinking back tears. Now he wasn’t talking, his teeth started chattering again, loud enough that Carol must have been able to hear it.

“The others will be back soon,” he said, trying to think of something to say that might stop her crying. “Visiting hours are nearly over. You can talk to Mike when he gets back. The doctor said Terry was stable. You can come to the hospital with the others tomorrow afternoon if you want to see him.” Eric sighed, wiping his eyes dry. He didn’t know what else he could say.

Eventually, Carol seemed to get some control back, but her voice was shuddery and she seemed like she could break again any second. “I h-heard on the radio that th-there was an accident. Was that Terry?”

“Yeah, that was him.”

“But it s-said two men were in-injured,” Carol stuttered, and Eric heard her sniff loudly.

“Yeah,” Eric rubbed his sweaty forehead, trying to ignore the way his stomach was churning. “The other guy was Jonesy.” He heard Carol gasp again, and quickly added, “But he only broke his arm, Carol, he’s fine.”

“H-how?”

“Gilliam pushed him out of the way, and he stumbled and fell on his arm.”

“Bloody hell,” Carol breathed.

“I know,” He said absently, wondering what it must have been like to have actually seen the accident.

“He saved him . . .” Her voice wobbled, like she was about to break down again.

But Eric didn’t have the chance to reassure her, as he felt his throat begin to burn with the telltale feeling of nausea, and had to fight the urge to vomit. It was only when his mouth filled with vomit that he realised that he couldn’t hold it.

“’Scuse me a moment.” Eric babbled, dropping the phone onto the bed and scrabbling for the bowl.

He threw up violently, and even though there was nothing in his stomach, it seemed to go on forever. Tears dribbled down his face, but he knew they weren’t just because of him being sick. As it happened, he could hear the buzz of Carol’s voice on the other end of the line, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying, although he did have a rough idea what she probably was saying.

When it was finally over, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and forced himself to take a few sips of water. Shivering, Eric shuffled back under the blankets and grabbed the phone again.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he said.

“What happened, Eric?” Carol said, her voice still thick with tears.

He considered lying, but there didn’t seem much of a point. “I was sick. I’m fine now.”

“Are you sure?”

Eric sighed, letting his mouth gape open so his teeth couldn’t chatter, although it now met his jaw was violently jerking up and down, which wasn’t really any better, when he thought about it.

“No. I feel fucking aw-ful!” His voice suddenly broke, and then tears were dribbling down his cheeks. “But I can’t say it without t-totally invalidating what’s hap-happened to the other guys. But I feel l-like shit.”

“Eric, sweetheart, don’t cry,” Carol said, and Eric wished she could give him a hug. He looked up at the clock and only cried harder when he saw that it would be at least half an hour until Mike got back, so he didn’t have him either. “Look, I’ll come over.”

He took in a shuddering breath and tried to calm down, but it didn’t help. He thought of John and how he had broken down all those hours ago in the toilets, and how he’d helped him, and how he didn’t have anyone here to help him when he needed help.

“N-no, you d-don’t have to—”

He heard Carol sniff. “No, I’ll come over, Eric. Not just for you, for all of you. You all need support right now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, I promise.”

“Th-thanks, Carol,” he swallowed hard, feeling a sense of dread when he realised that he was feeling sick again.

“It’s nothing, sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.”

When he heard the dial tone, Eric dumped the handset back onto the cradle and scrubbed at his face, wishing he could stop crying. Realising that he was going to need to let Carol in, he hauled himself out of bed, making sure to wrap his blanket around his shoulders like a cape. His feet dragging and his head spinning, Eric stumbled across the landing and into the bathroom, where he went about the disgusting task of cleaning out his sick bowl. Doing it made him sick, but at least this time he could do it down the toilet like a civilised human being.

As he washed his hands, Eric stared at his reflection, and he wasn’t even shocked any more to see his flushed cheeks and the dark smudges under his bloodshot eyes. His legs were starting to wobble, and Eric let himself sink to the floor before he fell, not allowing himself to fully register the humiliation of his current situation.

Sighing, Eric tucked his bowl under his arm and set about crawling down the stairs, waiting for Carol to arrive.

\-----------

The moment John got outside, he lit up a cigarette and began to smoke. It was quite windy, and he ended up with smoke stinging his eyes, but at least he had an excuse for why they were so watery. He noticed a nurse staring at him, and walked around the side of the building until he found one of the designated smoking areas. Unlike in the night, there were several people huddled inside it, but, if they recognised him, they didn’t try to talk to him, something he was very glad about.

He just had to get away. He couldn’t just sit there and listen to the others talk about Terry without feeling like he was going to break down again. It just made him feel so awful, if he didn’t already, to learn that Terry’s parents were arseholes, stupid, horrible, judgemental arseholes who hated their son. Especially when he remembered how he had treated Terry right before the accident.

Because how could he call Terry’s parents arseholes when he had done exactly the same thing?

\-----------

Graham dozed on and off, the hours melting into one big blur. Even when he was asleep, he could hear the whirring and bleeping of the various machines that Gilliam was hooked up to, and when he was awake, he couldn’t help but go over to the machines to check the readings, just in case something had gone wrong. Every so often, a nurse would come in and check Terry’s vital signs and use of tube to suck fluid out of his trachea, and Graham watched intently, worried that they somehow might hurt his friend.

Michael kept trying to talk to Terry, but only seemed to succeed in making himself upset when he realised that he wasn’t going to get a response. Jonesy was in a foul mood, most likely from the pain his broken arm was causing, and was constantly getting up, walking about and shifting in his seat, as though he couldn’t find a way to get comfortable, and even though he wanted to stop the pain, he didn’t know what he could do to help him. Gray was happy on the floor with his back against the radiator, even though he had been there for so long that it was making the backs of his legs numb.

At one point, Jonesy turned to him and asked, “What can I do to stop my arm hurting so much, Gray?”

He considered asking if Terry wanted to sit on his lap and have a hug (which would only partially be a joke), but instead shrugged his shoulders, sighing sadly. “Only painkillers’ll work ‘m afraid, and I d-don’t have any.”

“Fucking hell,” Terry groaned, gritting his teeth. He turned back around in his seat, and Gray sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to get to hug him. And he really did want to cuddle Jonesy – he just didn’t know if he wanted him to back.

When he realised that John still hadn’t come back, Graham stood up and looked out of the window, wondering if could spot him. They were on the third floor, but John was so tall that he knew he would easily stand out. But he couldn’t see him, and, sighing, he turned around and slid down the wall to the floor, folding his arms across his chest.

He knew that John must have gone off to cry again, just like he had in the night; and he knew that it wasn’t Eric who had been upset and was being comforted instead, because it was so obviously the other way around. Although he wasn’t sure why John kept getting upset and rushing off to cry, because he had Jonesy had been there when the accident happened, and they weren’t acting like him (well, they had both cried, but not that many times). It was confusing when Gray thought about it, because this was _John_ he was thinking about. John never got upset, and if he did, he got angry rather than tearful.

He tried to think about what had happened, but he couldn’t remember; it had all happened so fast. He remembered him and Jonesy were slumped in a booth at the club, and John and Gilliam were over at the bar. But they didn’t seem to be ordering drinks, instead, Gray thought that they were arguing. John had looked like he was yelling at Terry, and Terry looked really hurt, and then he stormed off. He hurried right past their booth, and they both saw him looking upset, and Jonesy got up and rushed after him, calling his name. John called out his name and said something, looking incredibly guilty for some reason, and Gray caught his arm as he came past their seats, following John out of the club and onto the road. He didn’t get a chance to ask John what the fuck he’d done to upset Terry, because the next thing he knew, he and John were frozen to the spot, watching a car, suddenly on the pavement, racing towards Jonesy. Terry was frozen too, tensed up as though resigned to his fate, but then Gilliam shoved him hard in the back, and Jonesy stumbled out into the road and fell, and then the car slammed into Gilliam and . . .

He felt tears stinging his eyes, and tried not to think about the accident. That wasn’t what he was meant to be thinking about anyway. He looked down at his hands and shuddered, thinking about how they had been coated in blood. And then he looked up at Mike and remembered how Mike had seen him break down, and was very glad that Michael couldn’t see how red his face had gone.

But he couldn’t think of what John might have done to have made Gilliam upset enough to storm off, because it wasn’t easy to upset Terry – he was the most laid back person he knew.

“Terry?” He said before he realised what he was doing.

Jonesy turned around and gave him a weary smile, the bruise on his forehead worrying dark against his washed out face. “What is it, Gray?”

“’Was just th-thinking about before the . . . it h-happened,” he said, trying to avoid using the word.

“What about it?” Terry said, looking so adorable that Gray just wanted to hug him. Or . . . no, he stopped himself, knowing this wasn’t the time to think about that.

“What d’you th-think John said to m-make Terry storm off like th-that?”

“What?” Michael said, turning around and letting go of Gilliam’s arm. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about?”

Jonesy sighed. “Before . . . it happened, John and Gilly were on the other side of the club, talking about something, and me and Gray were watching them, because we were bored and had nothing better to do.” _Well, we could have been doing a lot of other things, if you catch my drift_ , Gray thought, trying to stop himself raising his eyebrows. “And their discussion seemed to get sort of heated, and Terry looked upset, and he stormed off.” Terry seemed to be tearing up just thinking about it, and Mike wrapped his arm around him, and Gray tried to ignore the pathetic part of his mind that was jealous.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you . . .” Mike said, but he trailed off when Terry began to talk over him, his voice shaking.

“No, I’m fine. But, yeah, I tried to get him to stop when he went hurtling past us, but he didn’t, so I followed after him, but he wouldn’t tell me, and the shit all happened, so, obviously, I didn’t have a chance to ask him what had happened.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Gray went to give him his handkerchief, but then he remembered that it was soaked in blood and had been dumped into the ambulance’s biohazard bag, and let his hand rest back in his lap.

“And you really have no clue why he stormed off?” Michael said.

“No. I was g-going to ask John, but . . .”

“He’d prob-probably tell y-you to fuck off?” Gray suggested, and Terry nodded.

“Yes, I see your point,” Michael said. He sighed heavily, and glanced over his shoulder at the man on the bed. “I’m not saying it was John’s fault or anything, but can you imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t upset Terry?”

Jonesy nodded, and looked like he was going to burst into tears, but Gray just felt satisfied, even if his own eyes were now filling with tears.

Now he knew why John must have been so upset: he obviously thought that the accident was all his fault. And, even though it made Gray feel bad to blame his best friend, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

\---

Michael looked up when he heard the door open, and didn‘t bother to bother to hide his groan when he saw it was the arsey nurse they’d met in the night, and he heard Jonesy make a similar noise. She looked just as irritated to see him as she entered the room and went over to the machines, obviously doing one of the several checks Mike had watched whilst in Terry’s room. Of course, he was grateful that someone was checking on his friend, he just wished it didn’t have to be her.

He watched as she fed a small tube down the huge one sticking out of Terry’s mouth, which, according to Graham, was to suck excess mucus and other fluids out of his lungs. It disturbed him to watch Terry’s face whilst it was happening, as he knew that the procedure must have been very uncomfortable, yet Terry didn’t respond at all, not even flinching.

“Just so you know, gentlemen,” the nurse suddenly said, making Graham jump. “Visiting hours will be finishing in ten minutes, and that means you’ll have to leave.”

Terry looked like he was desperate to yell at her, but instead looked into his lap, clenching and unclenching his working hand into a trembling fist.

“Yes, thank you, we will,” Mike said stiffly, forcing himself to smile. “Is he any better?”

For the first time, the nurse seemed to stop being snooty with him, and sighed, giving him a sad smile. “I’m afraid not.”

“I mean, I didn’t think he was, but, you know,” he shrugged, blinking rapidly as he felt his eyes sting, trying to pretend that he hadn’t just asked such a stupid question.

“No, I understand,” she smiled, and it looked like she really meant it.

“It’s good t-to stay positive,” Gray added, and she nodded.

“Exactly, there’s no harm in staying positive.”

Mike smiled, but he found it hard to follow Gray’s words; he remembered what the doctor had told them, and grimaced when he thought about Gilliam having probable brain damage. Jonesy seemed to be having the same thoughts, but, like Mike, he didn’t say anything, instead staring blankly at Gilliam, deep in thought.

“Yes, I guess so,” he mumbled, and the room dissolved into silence. Well, as silent as possible when the room was full of hissing, bleeping, whirring machines, but he knew what he meant.

“Do you know wh-what happened to Terry’s things?” Graham asked the nurse, unsteadily getting to his feet. Mike wondered if he was taking advantage of the nurse seeming to be in a good mood, but he was actually rather intrigued by Gray’s question, because Terry would have been carrying his wallet and keys at the time of the accident, and he hadn’t seen them.

“If he has any belongings on his person when he was brought in, they should be in his locker,” she said, nodding towards the small locker beside Terry’s bed that none of them seemed to have noticed before now.

“Of course they are,” Gray said, looking irritated with himself for not having realised that before now.

With the nurse’s permission, Mike opened the locker and found Terry’s small, leather shoulder bag, a bag that John and Graham had playfully tormented Terry about for supposedly making him look ‘girly’. His eyes began to sting when he saw the strap had been cut, realising that the paramedics must have had to cut it off of him with scissors, and that there was a huge tear in the side, exposing the orange lining.

“Bloody hell,” Jonesy said.

“They had t-to cut it off of h-him,” Gray explained, leaning his hands on the back of Terry’s chair for stability. Actually, he rested his hands on Terry’s shoulders, and Mike saw Jonesy lean the back of his head against Gray’s stomach, an action that seemed to please Gray. “The paramedics. I would’ve ta-taken it, but I guess I, I wasn’t th-think straight.”

Sighing, Mike opened it, and had a look at what was inside, feeling slightly like he was invading Gilliam’s privacy. He found Terry’s lighter, his cigarettes, his wallet, his keys and his notebook and some loose pencils, all such normal things to own. But the lighter was dented, his pencils had snapped and his keys were bent out of shape, and it finally seemed to occur to Mike just how hard he had been hit. He looked at Terry, taking in the stitches and bruises and casts and tubes and machines, and felt his eyes fill with tears.

Blinking rapidly, he looked up at the nurse, willing himself to not break down. “Can I take this?”

The nurse nodded. “We encourage friends and family too look after our patients’ belongings, so, yes, you can.”

“Thank you,” Mike closed the bag and pressed it to his chest as though hugging the bag was somehow a substitute for hugging Terry. But it was a bloody poor substitute, and he picked up Terry’s limp hand and squeezed it hard, wishing that the American would respond. But he didn’t, and Mike had to wipe his eyes before he burst into tears all over again.

\----------

John checked his watch, and, realising that it was almost six o’clock, he knew he didn’t have time to go back into the hospital to see Terry. He inwardly kicked himself for letting Terry down again, and trailed off in the direction of Michael’s car, hoping he would bump into the others on the way.

Sure enough, just as he was passing the entrance to the building, he heard Michael call his name, and turned around sharply, making his head spin slightly. The other three Python’s came hurrying over to him, and Mike gave him a quick hug.

“Where’ve you been, John?” Michael asked, and John glared at him.

“I didn’t know you’d turned into my bloody mother, Michael,” he snapped, folding his arms across his chest.

“He was only joking, John,” Bloody Jones said, and John wanted to punch him.

“I don’t fucking care what you think, Jones, so just fucking leave me alone!” He smiled in satisfaction when Jones flinched, and turned on his heels and stormed off towards the car.

“John, wait!” Michael called, but he didn’t turn around.

It was only when he was back in the car that the extent of what he had just done seemed to hit home. And he bloody hated himself for it – why couldn’t he have learned from the accident that saying horrible things to someone was a bad idea? Why couldn’t he get it into his thick head that being an arsehole wasn’t witty? Because it really wasn’t; all it had done to him over the years was fuck up his relationships and leave him feeling horribly guilty.

But he never learned, that was his problem.


	9. Chapter 9

“Hello, Carol, what are you doing here?” Mike said as he opened the front door and was faced with Carol stood in the doorway. She looked upset, but, if Eric had told her what had happened, that didn’t surprise Mike too much.

“Eric called,” she explained, stepping to the side so Mike and the others could enter the house. “And I thought I’d better come ‘round to give you all some support.”

Mike kicked his shoes off and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Carol.”

“It’s nothing,” she smiled and turned to the other guys, but Mike didn’t listen to what she said to them. He didn’t seem to be able to concentrate properly anymore, presumably because he was so tired.

Yawning, Mike wandered into the living room, where he found poor Eric curled up on the sofa, covered in blankets and shivering. He sat up slightly when he saw him, and Mike went and sat on the edge of the sofa, linking hands with Eric.

“Hello,” he said blearily , rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

“How’re you feeling?” He said, even though he knew it was a stupid question. Eric’s palm was horribly sweaty, and his thick hair was sticking to his forehead, making him look like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

“’Ve been better,” he shrugged.

“Carol said you phoned her,” Mike said, lowering his voice as he heard the others come into the room.

“Yeah,” Eric grinned bashfully, looking away from him. “I felt really lonely, so I called Carol just to have a chat, you know. But then I told her about the accident, and she got upset, and then I got upset, and she insisted that she needed to come over. So, yeah, that’s why Carol’s here.”

Mike smiled sadly and squeezed Eric’s hand, feeling guilty for leaving Eric alone, especially when he knew that he wasn’t well. “I’m sorry you felt lonely, mate.”

But Eric shrugged again, and said, “You needed to go.”

Mike smiled, but that didn’t make him feel any better. “If you say so.”

He stood up, watching John sink into one of the armchairs, and got Eric to move so he was sitting with Eric’s head resting in his lap. He stroked his partner’s damp hair, feeling Eric shiver and wishing he could do something to make him feel better. Jonesy sat down in the other armchair, which just happened to be on the other side of the room to John, who he didn’t seem to be getting on with very well, and Gray, not having anywhere to sit, went and perched on the arm of the chair, slinging his arm around Terry’s shoulders.

Carol handed him a cup of tea, and Mike, smiling gratefully, drank it quickly, surprised to find that he was actually very thirsty. Which was when it occurred to him that he hadn’t had a drink in hours so of course he was bloody thirsty. The others drank too, except Eric, who said he felt sick, and no one spoke, making the room so quiet that Mike could hear the clock ticking. But he didn’t mind the clock after having been in that noisy room for the last two and a half hours.

“I thought you should know that I’ve phoned Neil, but no one else,” she said, breaking the awkward silence.

“No one else needs to know,” John snapped, not looking up from his cup of tea. “It’s none of their business.”

Ignoring John, Mike smiled at Carol and thanked her, and Graham did the same.

“What about his family?” Carol asked before anyone could stop her, and Mike tensed up, knowing what was coming.

“No!” John hissed through gritted teeth.

Carol looked hurt, and backed away. “What? I don’t understand.”

Eric, obviously as confused as Carol, raised his head and looked at Mike, not seeming to grasp the fact that this wasn’t the time to be asking about it. “What’s wrong with Terry’s family?”

“They don’t talk to him anymore,” Graham said, cutting John off before he could say anything else.

“But—”

“I’ll tell you later,” Mike whispered, and Graham mouthed the same thing at Carol, who seemed to understand and didn’t elaborate.

“So, anyway, how is he?” Carol asked, glancing awkwardly around the room.

“Not good.” Terry said, and Mike wasn’t sure if he was talking about Gilliam or himself. John scoffed at his understatement, but didn’t say anything.

“He’s in a c-coma, on life su-support,” Graham added, giving Terry’s shoulder a squeeze. “No sign o-of recovery right now and r-real chance of br-brain damage.” He said it flatly, with no emotion in his voice, probably because he would start crying if he allowed himself to express his emotions.

Eric shuffled around and pressed his face against Mike’s stomach, and it sounded like he might have been crying. Mike patted his back and sighed, trying to blink back the tears in his eyes.

“Fuck,” Carol said simply. “I knew it was bad – Eric said so – but . . . n-not that serious.”

“Well it is,” John muttered, and his voice wobbled. “It’s really fucking bad.”

Carol stared at John, but didn’t mention the way his bottom lip had started to wobble. But Mike knew she was amazed, because John had never acted so emotional before now, and it was hard to see him so close to tears.

By the time everyone even began to consider what they were going to do with themselves, it was nine o’clock in the evening, and Mike and Carol were in agreement that everyone should stay at his house for the night. After a lot of arguing, it was decided that Jonesy, being injured, should get the proper bed in the spare room, something John seemed to be rather bitter about. Carol ended up on the sofa (which, as Eric explained in an attempt to persuade her to sleep on it, was actually more comfortable than their own bed), and John and Graham got a load of blankets on the living room floor. They were still whining when Mike trailed off upstairs to go to bed, but he was too tired to argue back.

“Fucking hell, I’m knackered,” he said, pulling off his trousers and jumper and getting into bed without changing into his pyjamas or even brushing his teeth. Yawning, he snuggled up beside Eric, who was curled up on his side, shivering violently.

“You can say that again,” Eric muttered, his teeth chattering together as he spoke.

After quickly checking that Eric had his sick bowl, Mike gave his partner’s forehead a kiss and switched off the light, falling asleep almost instantly.

\----------

Mike was awoken in the middle of the night by what sounded very much like Eric being sick. Sure enough, when he reached for the cord and switched on the light, he saw his partner hunched over his sick bowl, throwing up violently. Mike saw tears dribbling down his cheeks, and wrapped his arms around him, feeling near tears himself.

“Poor Eric,” he mumbled, and he saw Eric try to smile.

When it was over, Eric flopped back weakly against the pillows, not bothering to wipe the stomach acid and spit from his lips and chin. “Fucking hell.”

“Would, would you like a drink?” He asked, and Eric nodded. “Right then, I’ll be back in a minute.”

He reached for the empty glass on Eric’s bedside table and clamoured out of bed. He went into the bathroom and filled up the glass from the cold tap, and then went back to their bedroom. But as he passed the spare room, finding the door open instead of closed, Mike decided to have a quick check on Terry. Sticking his head around the door, he found the room empty, and immediately wondered where the hell his best friend had gone.

He went back into their room and gave Eric his water, and then went back onto the landing, trying to calm the totally irrational feeling of panic. He knew Terry wasn’t in his room, and he wasn’t in the bathroom, and that meant he must have been downstairs. Sighing, Mike tiptoed down the stairs, and, once in the hallway, he saw light coming from under the kitchen door. Opening the door, Mike found Terry and Graham sat on the edge of the table, Gray with his arm right around Terry, who was crying, his hand stuffed into his mouth to muffle the noise.

“Bloody hell, Terry,” he said, and they both jumped. “Sorry. But, seriously, what’s the matter with you?”

Terry didn’t seem capable of speaking, he was crying so hard. For the first time, Mike saw that Terry’s fingers on his broken arm were looking oddly limp and motionless, much like Gilliam’s had been when they’d been in the hospital.

“His arm’s hurting really badly,” Gray explained thickly, obviously struggling to hold back tears. “I was w-woken up by him making a rac-racket in here trying to f-find painkillers. He says his fingers are f-feeling really numb and tingly, and he’s, he’s getting shooting pains down his arm f-from his elbow.”

“Bloody hell,” Mike repeated, moving to rub Terry’s back. “What’s causing it?”

“N-not sure,” Gray said. “But I th-think it’s a trapped nerve.”

“What do you mean?” Mike asked, not quite understanding.

Graham sighed. “His elbow was dis-dislocated when he br-broke his arm, right?”

“Yeah,” Mike said, and Terry nodded, his breathing seeming to be getting less shuddery.

“Yes, a-and that must’ve c-caused one of his n-nerves to become tr-trapped, which would ex-explain the symptoms.”

Mike nodded, not surprised that Terry must have been in a lot of pain. “Will he need to go to hospital?”

Graham shrugged his shoulders. “Not now, pr-probably. I found h-him some strong pa-painkillers in your cupboard, but if he’s still in a-agony tomorrow, I’ll t-take him down to A and E when we’re up at the hos-hospital.”

Mike nodded, noting that the painkillers Gray was talking about must have been the strong ones he got over the counter a couple of months ago when he had toothache. “Poor Terry,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

Terry took his hand out of his mouth, showing Mike deep, red teeth marks on the back of his hand, and wiped at his eyes, even though his breathing was still shuddery and he still looked close to tears. “Sorry for w-waking you,” he said, his voice still wobbling.

“Nah, you didn’t wake me up, mate, don’t worry about it. Eric did – he was being sick again.”

“How’s he doing?” Gray asked, reaching for the kitchen roll by the sink and giving a couple of sheets to Terry, who began to wipe his face dry.

Mike sighed heavily. “Not good.”

He felt bad for leaving Terry, but Gray seemed to be better at looking after him than he was, and he was just so tired that he had to go back up to bed. He said goodnight and trailed back upstairs, and got back into bed beside Eric, who was slowly sipping from his glass of water.

“What took you so long?” He asked weakly.

Mike considered telling Eric, but he didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily. “Nothing.”

Eric gave him a funny look, but switched the light off, and they both snuggled together under the blankets and quickly managed to fall asleep again. But when Mike awoke in the morning, he was still so tired that he felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

\--------

As Michael had decided, somewhat guilty, to go back home to look after Eric, and Graham had taken Jones down to A and E to get his bloody arm looked at, John found himself going into the ICU alone. It was strangely terrifying, but he tried to hide his anxiety, not wanting to look like a wimp. Slowly, John made his way down the corridor and into Terry’s room, where a nurse was checking his vital signs, like usual.

She smiled when she saw him. “Hello, you must be one Mr Gilliam’s friends. I’m Janet, his nurse for this shift.”

“Hello,” he said, even though he didn’t want to be talking to her at all. “I’m John.”

“Well, I’d like you to know that he’s doing fine. His blood pressure and pulse are a little too low for our liking, but they’re both within normal parameters. Also, I’m afraid that the alarm by his bed is broken, so if something happens and a nurse isn’t in here, just come down to the office at the end of the corridor, all right?”

“Why’s it broken?” John said, not very impressed with this hospital.

She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Someone should be coming to fix it in under an hour.”

Once she had finished her checks, she left John alone with Terry. Feeling a bit awkward, he leaned forwards in his seat and picked up Terry’s hand, interlocking their fingers and staring at the IV sticking out of his hand. Remembering that he was allowed to speak to him, John tried to think of something to say to Terry, but it was hard when he knew his friend couldn’t talk back.

“Hello, Terry, it’s John again,” he said, not sure how loud he should be speaking. “Look, I don’t really know what to say to you except I’m really sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for what I said to you, and I wish I could’ve said something nicer, then this might never have happened.” John felt his eyes fill with tears, and quickly wiped them before the tears could spill over. “I just wish you could talk back to me. Please?” He tried, but Terry didn’t respond.

After sitting in silence for what felt like a few minutes but was probably much longer, it began to occur to John that he was hearing different background noises to normal. He looked up at the machines opposite him, and realised that it was the ECG, which had been bleeping about once a second, now seemed to be beeping much more infrequently. The screen had the reading ’30 BPM’, and even John, who had literally no medical knowledge, knew that wasn’t a good thing. In fact, it was a really, really bad thing. When it dropped to twenty five beats per minute in less than thirty seconds, John realised that something terrible was happening. And when it dropped to twenty beats per minute, he began to panic.

“Nurse!” John yelled, leaping out of his seat. He rushed over to the bleeping machine and gave it a hard whack, but the reading stayed the same: a disturbingly low twenty beats per minute.

“Nurse!”

He went back over to the side of the bed and hung his head right over Terry’s chest. He could see it rising or falling, but that didn’t mean anything when he was hooked up to the ventilator, but when he touched his chest, he could feel his incredibly weak pulse. At least that was something. But it wasn’t enough to calm John down.

“Nurse!”

He shrieked as the ECG dropped down to ten beats per minute, slapping what little of Terry’s face that he could see so hard that his skin turned red.

“Listen to me, mate, if you fucking die on me right now I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

John’s face screwed up as a sob escaped his chest. He couldn’t bear it. Why was this happening? “Bloody hell. NURSE!”

He couldn’t wait any longer; giving Terry a quick glance, John rushed out of the room and into the corridor, where he couldn’t see any nurses. And, considering that Terry was in intensive care, that was pretty bad.

“Nurse! I need a nurse! Please, someone bloody help me!” He cried, clenching his hands into fists to try and stop his fingers shaking.

John ran down the ward and burst into the small office without knocking, where two nurses looked up in shock.

“What on Earth are you doing?” One of them said.

“I’m looking for a bloody nurse,” he snapped, trying to control his breathing. “My friend is almost flatlining and I couldn’t find a nurse anywhere.”

“Why didn’t you press the alarm?”

“It’s broken! Now, please can you help me?”

They both gave him a funny look, but followed after him as he raced back to the room, where the ECG was now reading five beats per minute. John was shoved to one side, being forced to watch helplessly as they checked Terry’s vital signs and concluded that there was something seriously wrong with him.

“Get Doctor Richards,” One of them said to the other. “Tell him we need to defibrillate.”

The other nurse nodded and hurried off, and John’s heart sank.

“A defibrillator?” He said, horrified.

“Yes, Mr Cleese,” the remaining nurse said, pulling the bed sheet down and exposing Terry’s bruised chest. “Mr Gilliam is going into cardiac arrest.”

“Fucking hell,” John gasped, his legs giving way. He sank into a chair and rested his head in his hands, staring at his dying friend with slightly blurred vision. When he realised that his eyes were filled with tears, John roughly wiped them with his cuffs and blinked hard, but they didn’t go away.

When the doctor appeared, along with a nurse helping him to wheel the heavy machine into the room, one of the nurses turned to John, and told him he needed to leave. He wanted to argue, not wanting to leave Terry, but he forced himself to do what the nurse said, and stumbled out into the corridor. Just before the door closed, John heard the ECG let out a long, monotonous beep, and he started to cry, knowing Terry had just started flatling.

Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, John watched through the window as the team of medics crowded around the bed, having to lean against the wall to stop himself toppling over. The sobs were catching in his throat and tears kept running down his face, and he knew he looked so stupid for crying, but he couldn’t help it. Trembling, he watched the doctor press paddles to Gilliam’s bruised chest, letting out a squealing noise when he saw his friend’s body jerk violently as electricity flowed through him. Then they did it again, and again, and again.

At some point, John’s legs gave way, and he sank to the floor. He leaned his back against the wall and rested his head in his hands, trying to calm himself down. But it was hard to calm down when he knew his friend, the man who loved him and he turned down, the man who was in this state because of him, was literally dying, and he had no idea if the doctor was going to be able to save him.

\---------

Mike was relieved when the phone started ringing, because it meant he could have a break from trying to scrub Eric’s vomit out of the carpet. He quickly went and ran his hands under the tap in the toilet, and then picked up the telephone before the person on the other end had a chance to hang up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mike, it’s John,” John said, and his voice didn’t sound right.

“John? Why’re you calling? What’s happened?” Mike said, trying to ignore the way he was already beginning to panic.

John let out a shuddering sigh that made the line crackle. “Something really bad happened earlier, and I thought I ought to let you know.”

“What happened?”

He only realised how loud his voice had been when he said that when Eric appeared at the top of the stairs, leaning against the banister for support. “What’s the matter, Mike?”

Mike ignored him, trying to listen to what John was saying.

“Well, uh, wh-when I was in Terry’s room earlier, his ECG readings went really low and . . . I had to get help, and then he, um, he flatlined and needed to defibrillated.” John’s voice cracked and he sounded like he was crying.

Mike felt near tears himself. “Fucking hell. Is he all right?”

John sniffed loudly, his voice wavering. “He is now, but . . . Mike, it was so fucking scary. He died, literally died. It took them half an hour to restart his heart, and I . . .”

“It’s all right, John,” Mike said, but John snapped at him.

“No it’s fucking not! You weren’t there!”

Mike sighed, not knowing what to say. “Look, I’m sorry, but please try not to get upset.”

“I’m not upset,” John insisted, his lie so blatant that Mike could have laughed. “I’m just stressed. Please, can you come up here? I don’t want to be here on my own.” He had been talking in a sappy tone, but his final sentence was a hushed whimper.

Mike glanced at Eric, who was now sitting on the top step of the stairs, watching him intently, and sighed. “If you really want me to.”

John sniffed. “Thanks, Mike. Really.”

Mike smiled. “That’s all right. I’ll see you soon.”

He put the phone back in its cradle and sighed, leaning his head against the wall. He heard the floorboards creaking, and then Eric sat down on the step above his, and put his hand on his shoulder.

“What’s the matter, Mike?”

He sighed, not wanting to tell Eric what had happened, and decided to lie, even though that made him feel bad too. “John’s feeling a bit upset, so I said I’d go along to keep him company.”

“I see,” Eric said, like he didn’t totally believe him. But then he smiled. “Fine, as long as you’re not too long.”

“I won’t be,” Mike said, giving him a hug. “I promise.”

\----------

When he finally found himself in Terry’s room, Mike wasn’t sure if he was relived or concerned to see him looking exactly the same as when he had last seen him. John’s appearance certainly concerned him, though; his eyes were red and puffy from crying, and he looked incredibly stressed out.

A nurse was also in the room, and Mike turned to her. “How is he?”

“He’s doing fine now, but we still don’t know why he went into cardiac arrest,” she said, and Mike didn’t exactly find her words reassuring.

When the nurse left, Mike sat down beside John and took hold of his hand, and was surprised to find that John didn’t pull away. He looked up at his friend, and saw John’s bottom lip wobbling, looking like he was dangerously close to losing it again.

“John, would, would you like a hug?” He asked, expecting to be told to fuck off.

But, to his amazement, John nodded, and quickly buried his head into Mike’s chest, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing him so hard Mike found it hard to breathe. He heard John start to sob, and rubbed the older man’s back, resting his chin on top of his head. Tears began to dribble down his cheeks, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away.

“It’s all right, mate, it’s all right,” he murmured.

“We nearly l-lost him,” John gasped, and Mike sighed, looking over at Gilliam.

“But we didn’t,” he said, but his optimism didn’t do much to calm John down.


	10. Chapter 10

After several hours of painful waiting in Accident and Emergency, Terry was finally sent down a corridor and into a room very similar to the room he had been in when he arrived at the hospital after the accident. Graham came with him, tucking his hand under his arm to help him walk, as he was feeling quite wobbly. Well, actually, he was feeling very, very wobbly, and, if he didn’t know better, he would have thought his leg was dragging slightly.

Like before, he hopped onto the bed, and Graham sat on the chair at the foot of the bed. But most definitely unlike before, this new nurse seemed to recognise them, the smile on her face reminding Terry of the way fans looked when they spotted him, and he groaned. Usually, though, he had no problem seeing fans, but, right now, he was in so much pain and so tired that he just couldn’t be bothered.

Luckily, the nurse kept a professional look at things, and didn’t mention anything. Instead, she smiled and sat down at the desk, and looked up at him.

“So, Mr Jones,” she said, looking down at the notes she must have been given. “You’ve been experiencing problems in your arm?”

Terry nodded, only for the sudden movement to make his dull headache throb painfully, and he winced. “Yes,” he said when the pain had died down, suddenly aware that Gray had taken his hand and was squeezing it tightly. “It’s been really painful ever since I broke it, and since it was set in plaster I keep getting these shooting pains down my arm from my elbow. It only got really bad in the night – I woke up and had these dreadful shooting pains, and my fingers felt numb and stiff and tingly. It was horrible.”

“It reduced him to t-tears,” Graham added, annoying Terry, who didn’t want the world to know that he’d been crying over something that was very likely not at all serious. “It was that painful, and Terry d-doesn’t cry easily, so that sh-should be a way to judge the sev-severity of his pain.”

“I see,” the nurse said, scribbling down some illegible notes onto her clipboard. “Do you mind if I have a look?”

“No, course not,” Terry said, and Gray gave his hand a comforting squeeze. For some reason, that seemed to help him stay calm, and he smiled gratefully.

The nurse undid his sling, supporting his arm before it could drop and jar his shoulder, and cradled his casted elbow in her hand. With her other hand, she began to prod and poke his fingers, asking him if he could feel it when she touched various parts of his exposed hand. Then she got a long stick that looked strangely like a very thick knitting needle and pressed the pointed end against the tips of his forefinger and middle finger, the sharp pain making him wince slightly.

“Can you feel that?” She said a few seconds later, and Terry looked up, feeling incredibly confused.

“Feel what?”

The nurse sighed, and shared a concerned look with Graham.

“What?” Terry said, his heart beginning to race, knowing that he was missing something important.

“This is quite serious, Mr Jones,” the nurse said, and Terry hoped that wasn’t an understatement.

“Shit.”

\--------

When he seemed to have stopped crying, John pulled away from Mike, leaving his shirt very damp and his chest feeling a bit sore from being squeezed so tightly. John sniffed loudly and wiped his eyes on his sleeve, not making eye contact. Mike knew that he must have been very embarrassed to have been emotional in front of him, and wondered what he could do to make his friend feel less awkward. He couldn’t think of anything.

“Thanks,” John mumbled, finding a tissue in his pocket and wiping his eyes again.

“It’s nothing, mate,” Mike smiled sadly. “Everyone needs a cry sometimes.”

John blew his nose, glancing quickly over at Gilliam, who hadn’t changed since he had last looked at him; he was still unconscious, and his heart rate was still at the right level, and Mike saw John sigh with relief.

“Besides, I’d be upset if I’d had to watch Terry . . .” he saw John’s jaw clench, and decided not to elaborate, lest he set his friend off again.

“Yes, but you’ve not cried as much as me, Mike,” John said, still gritting his teeth, which made his words hiss. “I haven’t bloody stopped crying ever since . . _. it_ happened, it’s pathetic.”

Mike sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not pathetic, John.”

“Yes it is” John said, and Mike knew he was getting close to losing it again, his voice getting thicker and his tone getting sharper. “It’s bloody weak and pathetic and wimpy and girly and—”

“No, it’s not,” Mike insisted, cutting the older man off, something which he had never done before. “It’s a perfectly normal response to a situation like this. It doesn’t make you weak.” He reached for John’s hand, but, this time, he pulled away, tucking his hands under his legs so he was sitting on them. Mike sighed and rested his trembling hands in his lap, and looked up at John again. “It makes you human, John.”

John looked him in the eyes for the first time, and Mike saw his shining with tears. It still concerned Mike more than he could possibly explain to see John crying, even more than seeing his own partner break down (which was bloody horrible and made him feel awful to see), because this was _John,_ and John never showed his emotions, even when he probably should. Because John was one of those uptight men who held the outdated and unhelpful belief that men should never cry, a belief that Mike absolutely hated but, until now, he had been unable to get John to change.

“It was just so bloody scary, Mike,” he said, his voice wobbling slightly. “It just came out of nowhere. One minute, I was sitting there, doing nothing, and the next . . .”

John had to stop talking for a few seconds, and Mike watched him swallow hard, obviously trying to regain his composure.

“I was totally helpless, and I didn’t know what to do. The fucking alarm in here was busted, so I had to run off and find a nurse, even though I really, really didn’t want to leave Terry alone. And then they all kicked me out and I had to watch through the glass, and I heard him flatline, and it was so awful. And it took so fucking _long_ – they were in there for forty five minutes, just shocking him and doing CPR, and it didn’t seem to be working.”

“How many shocks did it take?” Mike asked, not sure why he was asking.

“Fifty five – I counted.” John looked away again, blinking back tears. “I was just waiting for them to stop and tell me it hadn’t worked, that he was . . . dead.” Mike sighed heavily, hating seeing John so upset.

“But they didn’t,” Mike said, forcing himself to smile at his friend. “He pulled through.”

John smiled too, his looking just as forced as Mike’s felt, and wiped at his damp eyes. “Yes, he did.”

\------

After a fair amount of deliberation and arguing, Mike and John decided that they weren’t going to tell the others about Terry’s cardiac arrest, not wanting the others to get as upset as they were. So, once they had found Jonesy and Gray and were on their way back from the hospital, Mike couldn’t think of anything to talk about. He didn’t want to turn the radio after what they had all heard last time, and no one had anything to say, so it was horribly quiet inside Mike’s car. Luckily, though, Jonesy had a lot to tell them about his second trip to A and E in a week, and that helped break up the uncomfortable silence.

Terry seemed to be in a better mood than when he had last seen him, and Mike guessed, judging by his slightly slurred speech and dopey smile, that it was because he had been given some pretty strong painkillers. John, on the other hand, seemed to lose his relatively calm body language when Terry began to speak, frowning and staring out of the window, not adding anything to their conversation. It wasn’t the first time, when Mike thought about it, when John had acted oddly around Terry, and, if he didn’t know better, he could have sworn that John had a serious dislike of Jonesy. And he wasn’t sure why that would be the case, but he had a feeling that he was probably right.

“So basically,” Terry was saying, and, when Mike glanced in the rear view mirror, he could have sworn that he and Graham were holding hands, and he wasn’t sure what to think about that. “The nurse had a feel of my fingers, and found out what Gray had already thought, really, which was that my . . . something nerve—”

“Ulnar nerve,” Gray said, and Jonesy smiled. “Wh-which’s the one that hurts wh-when you whack your ‘f-funny bone’.” He added so Mike could understand his medical jargon, and Mike gave him a grateful nod.

“Yes, my ul-nar nerve was being pressed on by one of my bones, which was making me loose the feeling in my hand and causing those bloody horrible pains. Which, by the way, they gave me these really strong drugs for, and they’re actually working.” He added, confirming Mike’s theory.

“I can tell,” he said, chuckling. But then he saw how serious Terry was looking, and stopped himself.

“But, yeah, I had to have another X-ray and they said it was basically that they hadn’t aligned the bones properly, and one of them was crushing the nerve.”

Mike winced. “Did they sort it out?”

“No,” Terry sighed. “But I’ve got to go back next week for an operation to fix it.”

“Bloody hell.” Mike said. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Terry said, and Mike could tell he felt nervous just from the change in his tone. When he glanced in the mirror, he saw Gray move closer to him and put his arm around his shoulders, and smiled, as they actually looked quite sweet like that. “It needs to be re-broken and they’ll probably have to put some sort of metal thing in it to stop this happening again.”

“Bloody hell,” Mike repeated, wondering how horrible that sort of operation would be to have, and sympathising greatly with his best friend. But then he looked over at John, and Mike just knew John was thinking about how much more surgery Gilliam had been through, and was very relieved when John didn’t say anything, as he couldn’t deal with a row at the moment, he really couldn’t.

\---------

Eric was so lightheaded that he didn’t trust himself to walk to the bathroom, yet he didn’t exactly want to have to crawl there on his hands, as that would be far too humiliating. So, even though he felt bad for disturbing her, he called out Carol’s name, knowing his friend had come back with Mike, apparently because she had gotten so upset seeing Terry, which didn’t do much to relax him.

“What is it, sweetheart?” She yelled back from the bottom of the stairs. “Do you want me to come up?”

“Yes please,” he shouted, and he heard her footsteps on the stairs, getting louder as she came closer.

A few seconds later, Carol poked her head around the door, and gave him a sympathetic smile. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, really, I just . . .” Eric rubbed his sweaty forehead, feeling humiliated to even have to be asking her this. “Can you help me walk to the bathroom?”

“Of course I can, darling,” she said, and Eric smiled in relief. “Do you feel wobbly?”

“Yeah, I do a bit.” Eric admitted.

Carol smiled and took hold of his hand, and helped haul him to his feet. Eric swayed unsteadily, his legs wobbling and his head spinning, wondering if his new found dizziness had something to be with being dehydrated. That would certainly make sense, considering how he’d been barely able to keep anything down, and would explain his horribly dry mouth.

Slowly, they made their way through the room, across the landing, and into the bathroom, where Eric slumped onto the closed toilet lid, and sighed, trying to catch his breath. The room was spinning, and he felt like he might faint any minute.

“Are you all right, Eric?”

He looked up at her, struggling to focus. “’M fine, thanks.”

Carol didn’t look like she believed him, but said, “I’ll wait outside for you.”

“Y-yes.”

When Carol had left the room, Eric grabbed onto the sink and pulled himself to his feet. He stumbled unsteadily, realising that his vision was going black around the edges, but managed to stay upright as he pulled down his pyjama bottoms and boxers, his hands fumbling slightly, and began to urinate, only slightly concerned by how dark his piss looked. When he was finished, he flushed the toilet and pulled his pyjamas back up, ran his trembling hands under the tap.

But when he reached down to put the toilet seat back down, his knees suddenly buckled, and Eric stumbled forwards, losing his balance.

“Fuck!” He cried out, just seconds before his chin smacked against the edge of the sink, pain flaring through his head as his teeth smashed together. He cried out again when he hit the floor, landing awkwardly on his hip and whacking the back of his head against cupboard under the sink.

“What was that?” Carol yelled, bursting into the room without knocking. She crouched down beside him, her eyes wide in panic. “Eric?”

He gasped for breath, trying to fight back tears as his hip throbbed and his head pounded and his teeth ached, finding himself dizzier than ever. “I fell.”

“Well, I can sort of see that for myself, can’t I, sweetheart,” she said, tucking her hand behind his throbbing head and easing him upright.

“Yes, s-see your point,” he mumbled, wincing as the movement jarred his hip.

“What hurts?” Carol asked, letting him rest his head against her shoulder and wrapping her arms around him.

“Head ‘n’ hip,” Eric mumbled, and tears dribbled down his cheeks.

“You poor thing,” she said, rubbing his back.

“Don’t tell Mike,” he said into her shoulder, beginning to shiver again now he was out of bed and not moving, remembering just how ill he was.

“Why?”

“Don’t want to worry him.”

Carol sighed, obviously not agreeing with him, but then she pulled away from him slightly, putting her hands on his shoulders to stabilise him. “Are you crying?”

“Maybe,” Eric said, and Carol smiled sadly. She reached for the toilet roll and pressed several squares of paper into his hand. As he wiped his eyes, Eric felt his stomach churning with the ever so fucking familiar feeling of nausea, and, about thirty seconds later, he had his head over the toilet and was throwing up yet a-bloody-gain. “Shit.”

“You poor thing,” Carol said sympathetically, rubbing his back again.

Eric didn’t bother to hide his visible tears, sobbing openly as she hugged him again, just wishing and wishing and wishing that Mike was here

\---

Eric knew that it was for the best to not tell Mike about his fall, but that didn’t stop Mike finding out about it. The moment Mike walked into their bedroom, switching on the light so he could see him, he let out a loud, almost melodramatic gasp, and stumbled backwards slightly. It looked so fucking clichéd that, had he not felt so ill, Eric probably would have laughed.

“What happened to your chin?”

Eric pulled the blanket up over the bottom half of his face, trying to disguise the somewhat obvious bruise. “Nothing.”

“Eric?” Mike moved closer, sitting on the edge of the bed, and raised his eyebrows. “Please tell me the truth.” He sounded so weary and worried that Eric gave in.

He sighed heavily. “All right, I admit it, something did happen.”

“What?”

“I might have fallen over a bit.”

“A bit?” Mike frowned, clearly puzzled by his stupid response.

“Well, more than a bit.”

“What happened?” Mike asked, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it.

“My legs just gave way and I banged my chin on the sink.”

Mike sighed and pulled the sheets down, exposing his sore chin. “You poor thing. Did you hurt anything else?”

“Just my hip,” Eric said, but he didn’t want to pull the blankets off of him, so he didn’t show Michael the damage.

“Bloody hell,” Mike said, putting his arm around his shoulders. Eric leaned against him, wishing he could stop feeling so bloody sick. “Do you feel any better now?”

Eric shrugged. “Not really.”

Mike sighed and gave his arm a squeeze, and Eric wished he had just lied to him to make him feel better.

A couple of minutes later, Graham came stumbling into the room, without even bothering to knock.

“What the hell, Gray?” Mike said in mock outrage, and Eric started giggling at the look on his partner’s face.

Gray seemed to realise that his actions were out of place, and, taking a few steps backwards, knocked his knuckles against the door. “Sorry. Can I c-come in?”

Mike sighed, but he was smiling. “Yes.”

“Now I kn-know this may sound strange,” Graham said, sounding slightly out of breath. For the first time, Eric realised that he was holding a plastic bottle in his hands. “But h-here me out.”

“What’re you on about?” Eric asked.

“Carol t-told me about Eric’s little f-fall—”

“So Carol told you, but she didn’t tell me?” Mike said, cutting him off. He sounded offended, but, this time, Eric didn’t think he was putting it on.

Gray gave him a funny look, but ignored him and carried on talking, and Eric heard Mike sigh irritably.

“B-basically, Carol told me that Eric h-had said his urine was very dark, so it’s obvious that he’s v-very dehydrated.”

“Why is he dehydrated?” Mike asked, as though he didn’t understand.

“Because I’ve thrown up more than I’ve drank anything,” he said, and Gray nodded.

“Exactly.”

“Is it anything to worry about?” Mike asked, and Eric could tell he was worried.

Graham shook his head. “Not r-really. We just need to k-keep him hydrated. I’ve boiled some water, and put sugar and salt in it, to make a sort of homemade rehydration solution. Here.”

He held out the bottle to Mike, who took it and immediately passed it to Eric. It was warm, and he pressed it against his chest, craving warmth.

“T-try it,” Gray said. “I’ll t-taste foul, mind you, but, y-you need it.”

Eric fumbled with the lid and held the bottle to his nose, grimacing as he smelt the disgusting mix of sugar and salt, two things that, in his opinion, were best left separate. He really didn’t want to drink it, but did what he was told, and took a swig of lukewarm sugar-salt-water. The taste made him gag, but he managed to swallow a couple of mouthfuls.

“Well done, mate.” Mike said, taking the bottle and placing it on the bedside table.

“Just take a s-sip every so o-often, and you sh-should start f-feeling less lightheaded.” Gray said.

Eric smiled. “Thanks, Gray.”

“It’s nothing, o-old chap. After all, I a-am a doctor, aren’t I?”

Mike smiled and raised his eyebrows. “At least we’ve finally found a use for you, Gray.”

Graham swatted at him, smiling. “Shut up, you g-great poof.”

“I could say the same you, duckie,” Mike said camply, and Eric grinned, loving it when his friends ‘argued’ like this. It almost made him forget how ill he felt. Almost.


	11. Chapter 11

Carol handed Jonesy a mug of tea as he sat down in the armchair, noting with a smile that he didn’t wince in pain this time. She noted again that Terry seemed to relax slightly when John got out of his seat and headed into the toilet, wondering what was wrong with the two of them; they really seemed to have much more of an issue with each other than they did before the accident. She made a mental note to ask Michael about it later.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling weakly.

“So,” she said, sitting down opposite him and picking up her own mug. “What’s the news with your arm?”

The smile slid from Terry’s face, and Carol wondered if she had made a mistake. But then he just sighed, looking more weary than hurt, and she relaxed.

“I had to have another X-ray, and the doctor said something had gone wrong when they set my arm. Basically, my bones weren’t aligned properly, and one of the fragments is pressing on one of the nerves in my elbow, which is why my fingers are numb and I keep getting those shooting pains.”

Carol winced just thinking about it. “That’s terrible. So, did they sort it out, or what?”

Terry scoffed. “With our NHS, Carol? No, but seriously, I’ve got an operation booked for next week.”

“You need an operation?” Carol gasped. “I had no idea it was that serious.”

“Yeah, well apparently I’ll need to be knocked out so they can investigate properly, and if it’s bad enough, I might need some framework in there to keep the bones in place.” Terry was saying it all in a very matter of fact way, but Carol could see the fear in his eyes, and knew he was very worried about his prospective surgery.

“You poor thing,” Carol said, trying to be reassuring.

“Don’t feel too sorry for him, Carol,” John said, coming back into the room.

Terry scowled at him. “And why can’t she feel sorry for me, exactly?”

John sat down in the furthest seat from Terry and folded his arms across his chest. “Because you’re only getting one thing in one arm. You should try being Gilliam, and then you’d deserve some sympathy.”

Carol watched Terry grit his teeth and grip his mug so hard his knuckles turned white, knowing he was dangerously close to snapping at John. This wasn’t the first time she had heard John deny Terry sympathy by bringing up what had happened to the other Terry, and she didn’t really think that was very fair. But, this time Terry managed not to yell at the older man, and Carol was grateful for that, because she really didn’t want there to be a massive argument right now.

She just wished that John and Terry could get along.

\-----

Not wanting to keep using Michael a taxi, John called a real taxi and got a lift back to his house. It seemed strange to be leaving his friends; he’d spent so much time with them over the last few days that he had practically forgotten that he had his own life outside of Monty Python. Or, as it had become since the accident, a life outside of going up to the hospital to see poor Terry and then coming back to Michael’s house and crashing on his living room floor.

Once he let himself him, he picked up the pile of letters on the doormat, idly flicking through them, and checked the answering machine. He had three messages: one from his mother, one from Connie, and one from the police station. Sighing, John pressed play and listened to the message from his mother.

“ _Hello, darling, it’s your mother. I don’t know why you’re not in, but I thought I’d leave you a message. I was wondering when you were going to come ‘round to see us, as it’s been too long, dear, and I’d love to see you. Well, I hope to hear from you soon, John, good bye.”_

John smiled fondly at his mother’s voice, even though he was slightly irritated by her constant insistence that he should come around and visit her and his father. It was no wonder that she was the inspiration for one of his sketches on _How To Irritate People_ , but he wasn’t planning on telling her that. Still, he made a note to call her back, and pressed the button to hear the message from Connie.

_“Hi, John. I just wanted to check if you still want this divorce to go through, or if . . . we might work things out—”_

John switched Connie’s voice off before the message had finished, sighing. He didn’t want to think about the divorce right now, even though his mind was made up. It was just so hard to look into his wife’s eyes and tell her that he didn’t love her any more. And it was made even worse by the fact that he didn’t even know _why_ he no longer loved her; he just didn’t.

The third and final message was from the police station, asking him to come to the station and make a witness statement about the accident, a message that he presumed Graham and Jones had also been sent, since all three of them gave their numbers to the police at the scene of the accident. John sighed, knowing that talking about what had happened wasn’t going to be easy, but he was going to have to do it, for Terry.

He wanted to get justice for his friend.

\--------

As much as they didn’t want to, the Python’s quickly found themselves settling into a routine. Every single day, they would go to Mike and Eric’s house, and Mike would drive them up to the hospital, where they would go and visit Gilliam. Graham, as he was too drunk to drive, had decided to stay with Mike for the time being, but it didn’t really bother Mike. To be quite honest, what with Eric being poorly, he was glad to have a doctor in the house, just in case something happened to his partner.

Jonesy stayed too, as he wasn’t able to drive, taking up the spare bed and spending most of his time either drugged up on painkillers or in so much pain that he ended up getting very snappy and irritable. John and Carol were the only ones who actually went back to their own houses at night, but they both made sure to be back at Mike’s in time to go to the hospital.

Eric was getting better, slowly. Every day, he was managing to eat and drink a bit more, and he was getting more and more able to keep things down. He looked better too, his cheeks gradually getting less and less flushed, and that helped Mike relax a little, as that was one less thing to worry about.

\-------

On the one week anniversary of the accident, Mike decided to lug his huge ring binder of partially competed sketches that he and Jonesy had written up to the hospital, and encouraged John to do the same with his and Gray’s sketches. John seemed confused by it, but he didn’t argue. Once they were all sat around Terry’s bed in the ICU (minus Eric, who was still considered too ill to be allowed onto the intensive care unit, but he was past moaning about it by now) Mike explained his plan, hoping the others would understand.

“Now I know this may sound silly,” he said, a bit self conscious. “But I was just thinking about what we did when we finished the writing stage for the first series of Flying Circus – you know, we all sat around Jonesy’s dining room table and read our sketches out to each other. And remember how we all got so defensive and manipulative, as we were all trying to get our own sketches into the programme? All of us did that, expect Terry. Remember? He was having the time of his life, laughing about our sketches like an unbiased audience and watching us argue. He loved it. So I thought . . .” Mike trailed off, beginning to get a bit teary as he looked at Terry, but the others seemed to understand.

Gray was nodding, chewing on his unlit pipe. Beside him, Jonesy was smiling, even though he looked a bit upset too.

“You want us to read our sketches out to Gilliam, don’t you?” John said.

Mike nodded. “Yeah, I do. I know he can’t exactly laugh this time, and he might not even be able to hear us, but it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s a lovely idea, Mike,” Carol said, giving his hand a squeeze.

He smiled, blinking back the tears. Soon, they were all reading their sketches aloud, all of them giggling and attracting the interest of the nurses on duty, but, in the end, it all reduced Mike to tears. It just wasn’t the same; he was so used to Gilliam giggling hysterically at jokes that weren’t even that funny and making them all laugh even though they were rowing, and it hurt him to watch his friend not respond in the slightest. Tears began trickling down his cheeks, and, even though he tried to hid it and carry on speaking, the other saw.

“Mike, sweetheart, don’t cry,” Carol said, pulling him into a hug. As he cried into Carol’s shoulder, Mike saw Jonesy break too, and Gray put his arm around his shoulders.

“Don’t y-you go too, old ch-chap,” Gray said, pulling Terry into a hug. He wrapped his arms tightly around the smaller man, and even in his hysterical state, part of Mike was amazed to see how cute they looked together like that, almost reminding him of him and Eric, or Gray and David before they broke up.

But then he went back to thinking about Gilliam, and cried so hard that a nurse came into the room and insisted he leave the ICU, as, apparently, his crying was disruptive. Carol don’t argue, and led him out of intensive care and onto the hospital grounds. Once they were somewhere quiet, she pulled him into a tight hug again, murmuring soothing rubbish into his ear to try and calm him down.

“It’s just so hard to see him like that,” He sobbed into her shoulder.

Carol sighed and patted his back. “I know,” she murmured, and it sounded like she was crying too. “I know.”

\---

Mike quickly grew to hate the hospital with a passion. The nurses were (for the most part) kind and helpful, and it was always interesting to meet the various doctors who came into the room to check on Terry, but he still hated the place.

He hated the fact that people kept recognising him, he hated the way he had to disinfect his hands with disgusting smelling antiseptic whenever he entered or left the ICU, he hated the fact that the time he could actually spend with Terry was so short, he hated the fact that he had to leave Eric at home, and, most all, he hated the fact that, every time he went into the room, Terry had made no improvement at all.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Over the past nine days, he had seen the swelling on Terry’s face go down slightly, and the bruising go from jet black to a sort of blacky-blue colour, but that wasn’t enough of an improvement to satisfy Mike.

Although, when he wandered into Terry’s room with Gray, John, Jonesy and Carol in tow, Mike was amazed to find a doctor leaning over Terry’s head, studying him and the readings on one of the machines closely. For a few seconds, he thought that Gilliam might have come out of his coma, but he quickly learned that that wasn’t the case. Still, it turned out that it was good news, even if the news wasn’t as good as he had hoped.

“What’s going on?” John asked the male nurse, a young, chatty, rather camp man named Jason, who was in the process of emptying Terry’s catheter bag. Mike wrinkled his nose at the strong smell of urea, but tried to ignore it.

“Mr Gilliam is being reviewed about having his drains removed.” Jason explained, and he was smiling slightly.

“His drains?” John said, and Mike remembered that he hadn’t been in the room when the nurse had explained the concept of drains to him and Jonesy.

“They’re those tubes you can see coming out of his head, chest and leg, Mr Cleese,” he said. “They basically drain excess fluid out of wounds while they are healing.”

“I see,” John mumbled, sinking into one of the plastic chairs. Mike couldn’t read his expression.

“So does that mean he’s healing well, then?” Terry asked.

“Yes, it does” the doctor said. He gave them each a nod, smiling. “I’m Doctor West; I’m the intensive care specialist. From what we can tell, his wounds are healing perfectly, and he no longer needs the drains, so they should be getting removed tomorrow.”

“That’s great,” Mike said, and John smiled. As long as Terry wasn’t getting worse, he was happy, and he knew his friends were too.

\------

After he dropped Gray, John and Terry off at the police station to do their witness statements, Mike went back home, not quite brave enough to go to the hospital alone. He knew that made him seem pathetic, but he couldn’t help it. Although, in his defence, visiting hours hadn’t started yet, so he couldn’t go even if he wanted to.

He checked on Eric, finding his partner asleep. But his sick bowl was full, which explained how disgusting the room smelled, and Mike sighed. Eric was supposed to be getting better, but since yesterday, he had started being sick more frequently, and Mike couldn’t’ help but worry that he was getting worse. Feeling sick, he went and rinsed the bowl out, and rested it back on the bedside table.

He felt lonely, and considered being cruel and waking Eric up, but talked himself out of it, knowing that wouldn’t be fair. Sighing, Mike trailed back downstairs, and dug out his ring binder full of sketches he and Terry had written. He wondered how his writing partner was getting on down at the police station, and hoped he wasn’t getting too upset.

As series one of Flying Circus had finished airing in January, the Pythons were currently in the writing stage for series two, which meant he and Terry had spent a lot of the last three months writing, and they still would now, if it wasn’t for the accident. And, as he had found when he and the others read their sketches out to Gilliam at the hospital, they were nowhere near finished or polished enough. He just didn’t have the strength to sit down and write at the moment, and he knew Jonesy was the same.

He flicked through the folder, several of the sketches making him chuckle even though he had written them, until he found the one he was looking for: a sketch about a man driving while intoxicated. Mike read through it, beginning to feel sick.

His hands shaking, and wondering how they ever could have thought it was funny, Mike read it again and then tore the paper to shreds. As he ripped it up, he felt tears in his eyes, hating how emotional he had become lately, but he couldn’t help it. It just made him feel so awful to know he had written jokes about drink driving as though it was something funny, especially as, now, he knew that it was the total opposite.

“Mike, what’re you doing down there?” Eric called from the top of the stairs, making Michael jump. He had no idea Eric was even awake.

“Nothing, mate, go back to bed,” He called back, trying to hide the fact that he was crying from his voice. But Eric didn’t sound convinced.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I don’t believe you,” Eric said, and Mike heard his footsteps on the stairs.

He scrambled to tidy up the scraps of paper, but, even though he was Eric was ill, he was too quick for him. Sighing, Mike looked up as Eric entered the room. His partner’s cheeks were flushed and sweaty, and he had his blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape.

“What the fuck are you doing, Mike?”

He wiped his eyes, but the tears kept falling. Eric stumbled across the room and sat down on the sofa beside him, and just looked at him, as though he didn’t know what to say.

“Mike?”

He sighed again, swallowing hard. “I was reading a sketch me and Terry wrote.” Mike mumbled. “About drink driving.”

“Ah,” Was all Eric said, and he put his arm around him. “I’m guessing it upset you.”

Mike nodded. “Yeah.”

“Come on,” Eric wrapped his arms around him, and Mike leaned against him. Eric pressed a kiss to the top of his head and rocked him from side to side.

“It just makes me feel like such an arsehole, Eric, to know I found that funny,” he mumbled into his partner’s shoulder.

“I know, mate,” Eric said. “But it’s not just you. We were all like that. We just didn’t know any better.”


	12. Chapter 12

Graham woke up in the middle of the night when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He wasn’t sure why it made him paranoid, but he still got unsteadily to his feet and followed after the footsteps, which appeared to be heading for the downstairs toilet. Gray felt slightly like he was invading their privacy, but he still went through the kitchen and into the hallway, stopping outside the toilet door.

The door was ajar, but not shut, and he could see a strip of light coming through the small gap. He was about to go away, when something made him stop. He could hear shuddering breathing, and that told the doctor in him that something must have been wrong.

Taking a deep breath, Graham pushed open the door. He found Terry sat on the toilet, hunched forwards so Gray couldn’t see his face.

“Terry?” He said, and Terry looked up sharply. Tears were dribbling down his cheeks.

“Go away, Graham,” he mumbled, his voice hitching.

“Are y-you crying?” Gray said, stepping further into the room.

Terry looked at him like he had asked a stupid question, which he had, if he thought about it.

“Fuck off,” Terry snapped, but Graham didn’t go away.

“What’s wrong, T-Terry,” he asked.

Terry seemed to realise that he wasn’t leaving, and sighed heavily. “Nothing.”

“That’s a l-lie, isn’t it?”

“No,” Terry snapped. But then he sighed again. “Maybe.”

“So what’s u-upset you?” he asked, putting his arm around Terry’s shoulders. Terry didn’t pull away. “Why were you crying?”

Terry shrugged bashfully, looking down at the floor. “It’s silly, really.”

“No, it’s not. You can tell me.”

Terry sighed. “Are you sure?”

Graham squeezed his arm. “Of c-course.”

“I’m just really worried about my operation,” Terry said, and now he was finally talking about what had been upsetting him, he didn’t seem to be able to stop. “I’ve never had general anaesthetic before, and I’m just a bit scared that it might not work and I’ll wake up during the operation, or if it might work too well and I’ll never wake up. And I know that’s unlikely and I’m just being paranoid, but I can’t help it. I’m just so scared, Gray.” His voice cracked, but he managed to hold back tears.

“Listen to m-me, Terry,” Gray said, as firmly as he could. He put his hands on the smaller man’s shoulders, and looked him straight in the eyes. “That is not g-going to happen. There is a risk, but it’s very, very rare, and, trust me, the an-anaesthetist will know e-exactly what they’re doing.”

“Are you sure?”

Gray nodded, and pulled him into a hug. Terry rested his head on his shoulder, and Gray wrapped his arms around him, wishing there was something he could do to properly comfort him. When Terry pulled away, Gray realised he was crying again, and it made him feel awful.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, wiping at his eyes.

“It’s all right,” Gray said, and, before he really knew why he was doing it, he quickly pressed his lips to Terry’s.

Terry pulled away sharply, like he was red hot, and Gray worried if he had made a mistake. He thought about what happened to Tim when he tried to do the same thing to John, and considered running away. What if he had just fucked up one of his few friendships? He was such an idiot.

“Why did you do that?” Terry asked, surprisingly calm. But Gray didn’t relax.

“I’m sorry, I j-just thought, I . . .”

Terry sighed. “I’m not going to freak out on you, Gray, so stop worrying,” he said, and Gray relaxed his legs, which had been tensed up, as though ready to run away.

Terry sniffed and wiped at his eyes. If nothing else, kissing him seemed to have distracted Terry from what was upsetting him, judging by the way he was now smiling slightly. “Do you fancy me then, Gray?”

Graham blushed and looked down at the floor. “I do a bit.”

Terry sighed and grinned at him. “Well, I can’t say this is a total shock.”

“And what’s th-that supposed to mean?” Gray asked, faking outrage.

“Well, you are gay, aren’t you?”

Gray raised his eyebrows, forcing himself to not give in to the laughter that was making his lips twitch. “So j-just because I’m gay, I _must_ f-fancy you, is th-that it?”

Terry chuckled thickly. “Yes, that’s about right.”

“Wanker,” Gray muttered, but he was giggling.

“But, seriously, I don’t hate you or anything, you know,” he said. “We’re still friends.”

He must have seen the way Gray’s face fell, because he quickly added, “I really do love you, Gray, just not in that way, I don’t think. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Gray forced himself to smile, even though he felt like he’d been stabbed though the chest. “Y-you don’t need to apologise” he said, even though part of him did think that Terry needed to apologise. “I, I understand.”

“I’m really sorry, Gray,” Terry said, giving him a quick, one armed hug. “I’m just not ready for a relationship with anyone right now. It’s nothing personal. Anyway, judging from how David used to rave about you, I bet you’re a wonderful partner.”

Graham had to look away, his cheeks flushing in bashful embarrassment. “Shut up, you soppy g-git.”

Terry chuckled, wiping tears from his eyes. “I can’t help being articulate, Gray. After all, I do have an English degree.”

They sat in silence for a while, Graham simply relishing being so close to Terry whilst also being amazed that his friend didn’t hate him and hadn’t even totally closed the doors on a possible future relationship between them.

“Can you sleep with me?” Terry suddenly asked, and immediately backtracked, stuttering over his words. “I mean, not sleep with me sleep with me, I mean, literally sleep in the same bed as me sort of sleep with me.”

Even though it didn’t make sense, Graham understood. He nodded his head, trying to pretend that he hadn’t been wishing for Terry to ask him that for years.. “If you want me to.”

“I do,” Terry said, suddenly looking embarrassed. “I’m really worried and I don’t want to be on my own.”

Gray smiled sadly. “I understand, old ch-chap.”

He helped Terry to his feet and they made their way through the house, almost bumping into things in the near darkness. He reached out and took Terry’s hand, and he didn’t pull away. Suddenly very conscious of the fact that Michael and Eric were asleep, Gray trod as quietly as he could as they made their way up the stairs, cringing every time a floorboard creaked. He knew the alcohol in his system wasn’t helping his attempts to be quiet either, because he was so clumsy that he kept lurching to the side and banging into the wall, but Terry held his arm to keep him steady, and Gray smiled gratefully.

They tiptoed past Mike and Eric’s room and entered the spare bedroom, where Terry snapped on the light. Gray raised his eyebrows when he saw the room contained only a single bed, wondering how they were both going to fit in it. Judging by the look on Terry’s face, he was thinking the same thing.

“I didn’t really think this through, did I?” He whispered. Gray had to clamp his hands over his mouth to keep from laughing at the look on his face.

Still, Terry got into bed, and Gray clamoured in beside him, linking his arm with Terry’s good arm to stop himself falling off of the edge. Terry snuggled closer to him, until his head was right on his chest, but Gray wasn’t complaining.

“Thanks, Gray,” he whispered.

Graham squeezed his arm and hugged him close, glad to be sharing a bed with the man he loved so much, even if he wasn’t sure if Terry loved him back. “It’s n-nothing.”

Even though Terry was crushing his arm, it didn’t take Graham long to fall asleep listening to the sound of Terry’s soft snores.

\---------

Mike managed to get a full night of sleep for the first time since the accident, and he woke up feeling like he actually had energy. It was an amazing feeling to not have a muzzy head, and he was glad to be able to think clearly for the first time in over a week. When Eric woke up, he also noticed how much more alert Mike seemed, and smiled.

“You look much better today,” he said, and Mike almost forgot that anything was wrong when Eric smiled at him, reminding him of how he normally acted.

The moment was ruined a few minutes later when Eric threw up all over the bed sheets, but it was good while it lasted.

“Sorry,” Eric mumbled, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

“It’s not your fault,” Mike said, quickly stripping the duvet cover off before the duvet could get soiled. He helped Eric remove his pyjama top, leaving his partner shivering in just his pyjama bottoms. As Eric got himself changed into clean clothes, Mike bundled the soiled items up and took them downstairs and rammed them into the washing machine.

After he started up the washing machine, Mike decided to make the most of being in the kitchen, and boiled the kettle. He got Eric a glass of water, and made up a mug of tea for the rest of them. Graham wasn’t in the living room, so he left his mug on the coffee table, and went back upstairs. He found Eric back in bed, with a fleecy blanket around his shoulders, and handed him his glass of water.

“I’m really sorry, Mike,” he said.

“You don’t need to apologise,” he insisted, taking a gulp of his tea before plonking the mug down on the bedside table.

Mike grabbed Terry’s mug and went and knocked on his door. He didn’t get an answer, so Mike poked his head around the door.

“Do you want some tea, Terry – bloody hell!” He gasped, for the first time seeing that Graham was in bed with Terry.

They were both asleep, Terry snuggled right into Gray’s chest, looking so adorable that he couldn’t help but smile. Graham’s eyes opened, and he turned his head to look at Mike.

“Hello, Mike,” he whispered, smiling, not looking remotely embarrassed.

“Are you two—?” He said, trailing off as he realised he didn’t actually know what he was trying to say. He couldn’t believe it.

“Ssh,” Graham nodded his head towards the man lying asleep beside him, and Mike didn’t say anything else, not wanting to wake up Jonesy.

Graham eased himself out from under Terry, who must have felt like a dead weight, and stumbled across the room towards him. Mike put the mug of tea on the bedside table, only for Gray to take his arm.

“You c-can’t give him that,” Gray whispered.

“Why not?”

“He c-can’t eat o-or drink for e-eight hours before the op,” Gray explained, surprising Mike, who didn’t know you had to fast before surgery.

Sighing, Mike picked the mug back up and let Gray lead him out of the room.

“So, anyway,” he said, leaning against the banister. “What’s happened between you two?”

He couldn’t quite keep the excitement out of his voice; but Mike couldn’t help but get excited when he heard that people were in a relationship, especially when they were gay, because he sometimes felt like he was the only gay person in the world.

“Before you s-say anything, nothing’s happened between us, n-not like that,” Gray said, and Mike sighed. “I found him crying in, in the n-night. He was really worried ab-about his surgery, and I had to comfort h-him.”

Mike found Gray’s words surprising, because he knew Graham wasn’t the most affectionate person, much like John, which was probably why they were so close. Yet what Graham was saying also made him feel bad, because Jonesy was his best friend, and Mike knew he should have been there for him. He realised that he had been neglecting Terry lately, and made a mental note to spend more time with him.

“The poor thing.” Mike quickly stuck his head into his and Eric’s room, but Eric was laying down, and didn’t seem to have heard what they were talking about.

“He didn’t w-want to be a-alone,” Gray continued.

“So you got into bed with him to keep him company?”

Gray nodded. “Exactly. Although,” Gray lowered his voice. “D-don’t tell t-the others, but I might h-have kissed Terry.”

Mike gasped, even though he wasn’t really shocked. “Really? How did he react?”

“Surprisingly w-well,” Gray said. “I thought he w-was going to hate me, b-but he doesn’t.”

Mike smiled, liking his best friend even more now. “That’s great, Gray. Really.”

\---

John and Carol arrived much earlier than expected, when they were still having breakfast. Well, except for Terry, who was unable to eat anything before his operation in the afternoon, but, if he was hungry, he wasn’t complaining. Mike went and let his friends in, and they joined the others in the living room, where they were watching the rather boring news.

Gray was letting Terry lean against him, and Mike had to keep reminding himself that they weren’t a couple, even though he sort of wished they were. Carol sat down next to Terry, and Mike went and sat on the arm of the armchair Eric was sitting on, covered in blankets. John took the armchair on the far side of the room, once again putting himself as far away from Jonesy as he could, and Mike was now certain that he was doing it deliberately. But if Terry even noticed, he didn’t react.

“Have any of you had an operation before?” Terry asked. His face was calm, but his voice was trembling slightly. Mike watched Gray put his arm around Terry, remembering what Gray had told him about Terry crying in the night.

Carol smiled sympathetically, putting her tea down on the coffee table. “I don’t think I have, sweetheart, sorry.”

“I have,” Eric said, totally surprising Mike.

“When was this?”

“Ages ago. I was only twelve, so I don’t exactly have the clearest memory of it, but, yeah, I had my appendix out.” He said, and Mike suddenly remembered the scar on his partner’s abdomen, right above his hip, and wondered why he hadn’t realised that sooner. He was such an idiot sometimes.

“What was it like?” Terry asked cautiously, as though he didn’t really want to hear Eric’s response.

Eric shrugged his shoulders. “Not that bad, really. It was just like how they do it in films, to be honest - they just put a mask over my nose and mouth and got me to count back from ten. Everything went black before I got to three, and when I woke up, I was in a hospital bed.”

Terry smiled weakly. “That’s good, I guess. Thanks, Eric.”

“It’s nothing,” Eric said, smiling back.

“So, do you think I’ll be all right?”

“How many times do we have to say it? Yes! Stop fucking worrying, Jones,” John snapped.

Terry sighed, gritting his teeth, and Mike saw Gray frown. John kept acting like this around Terry, and, to be honest, it was no wonder that Jonesy kept getting closer and closer to snapping at him. He knew John was as sleep deprived and stressed as the rest of them, but that wasn’t an excuse to act like an arse, in Mike’s opinion, and it was really beginning to annoy him. And, as he was somewhat irritatingly known as a ‘nice guy’, it was actually quite difficult to get on Mike’s nerves.

And it seemed that Jonesy was also sick of it, judging by the way he reacted.

“Look, John, what exactly is your problem?” Terry asked, and John raised his eyebrows.

“I’m just sick of your bloody self pity.”

“What self pity? What do you even mean?”

“John, Terry, can you stop arguing please?” Carol asked, but they ignored her.

Eric sighed, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “Do you have to do this now?”

“You can shut up, Eric,” John snapped. “You’re no better than him!”

“What have I done?” Eric cried. Mike took hold of his hand and squeezed it hard, trying to calm him down.

“John, leave Eric out of this,” he sighed. “He’s not very well.”

“I don’t fucking care!”

“Charming,” Eric muttered, keeping his voice quiet so John couldn’t hear him.

“What is the matter with you, John?” Carol asked. “Why must you keep getting so grumpy with us?”

“Because I’m fucking stressed, that’s why.”

“But we’re a-all stressed, J-John,” Graham slurred.

“I know that,” John sighed. “I just can’t stand Jones complaining when he knows how close he got to being in poor Gilliam’s place.”

“Don’t you think I know that, John?” Terry cried. “I feel like shit for it.”

“So why don’t you try acting like you care, then?”

“Would you rather it have been me who got hit, is that what you’re implying, John?” Terry said, his voice disturbingly calm.

John didn’t even have to think of his response, immediately uttering a simple, “Yes.”

“John,” Mike gasped, reaching out for Jonesy’s hand. Terry screwed his eyes up for a few seconds, but then went back to staring blankly at John, not looking nearly as angry as Mike would have thought he would be.

“Why would you say something like that?” Carol whispered.

“What a horrible thing to say,” Eric said, looking horrified.

“How could y-you say th-that, John?” Graham said.

“Because it’s true,” John said, just as eerily calm. But Mike could see his eyes shining, and he knew John was close to losing it. “I mean it, I really do.”

Terry forced a smile, even though he looked more like he wanted to cry. “Well, that’s nice to know. Thank you for that lovely opinion, John, I really appreciate the fact that you would want me to be in Gilliam’s situation instead.”

“You know, John,” now his voice was shaking, the sarcasm dissolving away, and Gray tightened his grip on his arm. “I didn’t ask him to push me. I didn’t ask Terry to basically sacrifice himself for me. I didn’t ask him to save me.”

“But he still did,” John muttered.

“So then isn’t it Terry’s fault?”

John glared at him, suddenly looking very angry. Mike tensed up, knowing what was coming. “How dare you say that!”

“Do you see what I mean?” Terry said thickly, turning to Mike and Eric. “I can’t fucking win.”

Terry got to his feet and stormed off, Gray following after him. A few seconds later, Mike heard their footsteps on the stairs. John just sighed, folding his arms across his chest.

“Well,” Eric said, trying to smile. “That was interesting.”

John glared at him and stalked off into the kitchen. Mike heard him kick something, and scream out a stream of swearwords a few seconds later.

Mike made eye contact with Carol, who raised her eyebrows, and sighed too. “Yes, it certainly was.”


	13. Chapter 13

Once again, John found himself going into Terry’s room alone. He could see why Michael and Graham wanted to go and be with Jones before he went in for surgery, but he didn’t want to himself; if it hadn’t already been made obvious, he couldn’t stand Terry Jones. He didn’t regret his words from the morning at all, even though he knew how awful that made him sound.

Sighing, he sat down next to the bed and picked up Terry’s hand as he always did. As he did, he noticed that the doctors had done what they had been discussing the day before; Terry was missing three of the tubes that had been sticking out of his head, leg and abdomen. He smiled, knowing that this meant Terry was recovering, if slowly.

Without the tube and its bandages, John could see much more of Terry’s head, even if most of his face was still obscured by the ventilator tube and its headgear, but, looking closer, he wasn’t sure if that was an improvement. Because now he could see the stitches in Terry’s scalp, and the large patch of shaved hair only seemed to make them more prominent. They were jet black against his red, scarred skin, and John could faintly see the outlines of the small metal plate the doctors had inserted the other day under his skin. He grimaced when he thought about how hard his head had hit the windscreen, and then the concrete, and knew it was no wonder his head was so badly damaged. He just wished his brain wasn’t damaged too.

John only realised that he was getting upset when his cheeks started getting damp, and he quickly wiped his eyes dry, furious with himself. He’d been crying far too much lately.

He sighed again. He knew that Terry was getting better, if slowly, and longed for him to wake up. He had to wake up. He couldn’t bear it if they had to switch off his ventilator . . .

“Stop it!” He said aloud, hitting himself in the forehead. He wiped his eyes again, not letting himself break down.

He let out a shuddering breath and picked up Terry’s hand again, interlocking their fingers. John wished his fingers would twitch, but they were still limp and heavy in his grip.

“Please, Terry,” he said, quietly enough that no one else in the ward would be able to hear him. “I’m not asking for a bloody miracle or anything like that. I’m not expecting you to sit up and start babbling about your fucking animation and bunches of things and all of that irritating crap that used to annoy me, I’m really not. Although, I would love to hear you talk about that stuff now, but that’s not the point.”

He was starting to get choked up, and swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the horrible lump in his throat. John quickly checked if all of the machines were still working, and carried on.

“Please, Terry, just do something, just to show me you’re still in there. Twitch you fingers, or open your eyes, or groan, or . . . just do something. Please, Gilliam.”

But Terry didn’t move; apart from his chest moving up and down in time to the ventilator, he was perfectly still. Not twitching, not flinching; not moving at all.

“Damn it, Terry!” John jumped to his feet, dropping his hand, and kicked his chair over. He stormed over to the window and stared out at the car park, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“What was that noise?” John turned his head sharply, and saw Jason, the friendly male nurse, stood in the doorway.

“Nothing,” He said, trying to pretend he was calm. “I just knocked my chair over.”

Jason raised his eyebrows. “Of course you did. I’m presuming everything is still all right in here?”

John nodded, even though he felt like bursting into tears. “Yeah, he’s fine.”

The nurse didn’t look convinced, and quickly flicked through Terry’s chart and checked the readings on the machines.

“You were right, Mr Cleese,” Jason said, and John smiled weakly. “He’s fine.”

If only Terry would wake up, then John might have believed him . . .

\-------

Once all of his tests and measurements were done, Terry changed into a hospital gown and got into his bed. Mike and Gray sat down next to him, both of them smiling and telling him reassuring things in a futile attempt to keep him calm, but he appreciated it nevertheless. He twisted the wrist band they had made him put on round and round his wrist, and tried to stay calm.

But when the nurses came to take him to the operating theatre, he couldn’t help but get a bit panicky, his heart pounding so loudly he could feel it in his neck.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, Terry,” Mike said, reaching for his hand and squeezing it.

Graham mimicked him, taking his hand and linking their fingers for a few seconds longer than a platonic friend should have done, but, then again, Terry knew that Graham viewed him as more than a friend. And even though he stood by what he told Gray in the night, he couldn’t help but smile at how much Graham obviously cared about him, how much he loved him. And part of him loved him back, he just didn’t know how to tell him.

“You’ll b-be fine, old ch-chap,” he said, smiling. And he looked so comforting that Terry almost believed him.

But then he had to say goodbye to his friends, feeling near tears as they wheeled him down the corridor on the way to the operating theatre. His heart was pounding again, and he felt like he was about to throw up.

“You’ll b-be fine, Terry,” He heard Graham call, his voice echoing. Terry relaxed little, almost laughing when he heard a nurse tell him off for shouting. “I p-promise.”

And he believed him.


	14. Chapter 14

Late into the evening, when he had expected John to have gone home, Mike found himself and John alone in the living room. He wasn’t sure how to act with John at the moment, not after his horrible outburst at Jonesy in the morning, but the telly had ended for the night (and neither of them had bothered to switch the set off, so they were just staring at the static on the screen), and so he had no choice but to strike up conversation with him.

“How was Terry, then, John?” He asked, feeling slightly guilty that he had missed his friend’s small visiting window to go and see Jonesy off before his surgery, even though he didn’t regret helping his friend stay calm when he was so obviously worried about his operation. He glanced at the clock; Terry must have been out of the recovery room for hours by now, and Gray must have been in to see him ages ago. He hoped the operation had been successful, relaxing slightly when he realised that Gray would have phoned if there had been a problem.

“He had those drains removed,” John said, without looking up. “Much more of his head was visible, but that meant I could see the stitches in his head.” He grimaced, and Mike did too as he thought about how that must have made poor Gilliam look. “He doesn’t look right with a shaved patch. It’ll take months for his hair to grow back to the length it was before.”

Mike smiled, bemused by John’s strange focus on Terry’s hair, of all things. “Yeah, I know what you mean. But that’s still good, isn’t it?”

John nodded, but he didn’t look like he believed him. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“It means he’s getting better,” he said.

“Yes,” John mumbled, not sounding totally with it.

“And that’s a good thing,” Mike said, trying to make John focus on the positives.

“I just wish he’d wake up, Mike,” John said, sighing.

Mike sighed too, not knowing how to counter that. “I know, mate.”

“It’s just so hard sitting there every bloody day and not getting a reaction at all.” John finally made eye contact, showing Mike his shining eyes. “You know, the more times I go and see him, the more I start to wonder if that doctor was right.”

Mike realised what he was implying, and frowned. “He’s not brain dead, John.”

“But how do you know that?” John said, his voice rising in volume. Mike considered telling him to be quiet, lest he wake Eric, but he kept his mouth shut. “I know we have to stay optimistic and all that bollocks, but we’ve got to be realistic. What if the last things we said to him really are the last thing he’ll ever hear us say?”

Mike sighed, not having the strength to argue. And, even though he hated to admit it, part of him actually agreed with John. He sighed again and went back to watching the static on the TV screen.

“What was the last thing you said to Terry before . . . it happened?” John asked, taking him by surprise. There was something off about his tone of voice, but Mike didn’t know what.

He tried to think about what had happened that evening, and then it came to him. “I was on the phone with Gray, who was trying to get me and Eric to come out with you lot, and at one point he put Terry on. I think I said something like ‘Sorry, Terry, I’d love to come out with you but Eric’s ill, so I can’t, I’ll see you tomorrow’.” He paused, swallowing back the lump in his throat. “They’re not very good last words, are they?”

John sighed shakily. “They’re better than mine.”

“Why? What did you say to him?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” John muttered, for some reason suddenly changing his mind. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He got to his feet and wandered over to the window, looking so stressed that Mike knew he was close to breaking. But, still, he asked him another question.

Mike stood up too, and went over to him. “John, what’s the matter?”

“Leave me alone, Michael,” John said, and Mike could hear his voice thickening.

“No, there’s something the matter with you. What did you say to Terry that’s got you this upset?” He remembered what Graham and Terry told him about Gilliam running off after he’d been talking to John, and he knew that John must have said something pretty bad. He just didn’t know what.

“I’m not upset,” John said.

“You are,” Mike insisted, raising his eyebrows. “Look, John, you can tell me, I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

For a couple of minutes, John seemed to ignore him, but then Mike heard him sigh shakily, and he knew John was preparing himself to say something.

“He asked me out you know,” John mumbled, his voice beginning to waver.

“What?”

“Gilliam, he asked me out.”

Mike frowned, wondering if he was mishearing him. He just wasn’t making any sense. “John, I don’t understand.”

“He asked me out!” John snapped, spinning around to face him.

Mike stumbled backwards, wanting to run away but forcing himself to stand still. “What?”

“He asked me out. Terry fucking asked me out!” John’s voice was rising in volume, until he was shouting right in Mike’s face. “He wanted to start a fucking relationship with me. And I said no.” His voice shook slightly, and Mike realised his friend was more upset than angry. “I rejected him.”

“But that’s not your fault, John,” Mike said, trying to be reassuring, even though he was fucking terrified. John always looked so scary when he was angry, probably because he was just so tall, and he kind of wanted to run away and hide. But he forced himself to stand there, trying his hardest to be in any way helpful. “If you’re turned him down nicely then you’re not to blame. It was an accident, you know that.”

“But I didn’t do it nicely, Mike, that’s the fucking point! I told him to fuck off and leave me alone and that he was a fucking poof and I wasn’t gay and . . .” John gripped the sides of his head like he was trying to pull his hair out, his face contorting as his eyes filled with tears.

“John, are you . . .?” He tried, but John wasn’t listening.

“I hurt him, so he ran away. That’s why he was outside wh-when he got hit, because he was so hurt he went storming off. I caused it. I . . . it’s all my fault.” His voice cracked and tears began to spill down his cheeks.

“John . . .” He didn’t know what to do, or how to react to seeing his friend break down like this. “Please don’t cry.”

Mike moved closer and tried to pull John into a hug, but he pushed him away.

“Get the fuck off me.” John growled, shoving him hard in the chest.

In fact, he shoved him so hard that Mike stumbled backwards and tripped over the coffee table, ending up sprawled on the floor. He landed awkwardly and heavily, banging the back of his head against the arm of the sofa, and his vision blurred for a few seconds.

“Fuck!” He hissed, pain shooting up his arm.

John just stared at him, his eyes widening until he looked incredibly manic, and started howling, moving his hands so Mike couldn’t see his face. John slowly sank to his knees, hunching forwards like someone had just kicked him in the stomach.

“I can’t bear it,” he sobbed, and Mike picked himself up from off the floor, rubbing his elbow. His legs were wobbling slightly, but he tried to ignore it. “It’s my f-fault. All my fucking fault.”

Mike didn’t know what to do. He’d never seen anyone this hysterical before, especially not someone as uptight and irritable as John, and he wasn’t sure if there was anything he could do to help him. But he was too scared to move closer in case John shoved him again, because his fall actually really hurt. He wished Eric would wake up, so he didn’t have to do this alone.

“John,” he said, desperately. “Don’t cry.”

But John was crying so hard he couldn’t speak, his sobs loud and cracking and catching in his throat. His face was red and sodden with tears, making him look so unlike himself that Mike began to wonder if he was dreaming. But then he felt his arm throbbing from his fall, and realised that this was all too real.

“John?” He crept closer and crouched down in front of the older man. He half expected to be told to bugger off, or shoved again, but what John said took him by total surprise.

“I h-hate myself, Mike,” he gasped between sobs, his voice shuddering.

Mike felt his eyes fill with tears, part of him wishing that he wasn’t so sensitive. “Don’t hate yourself.”

“C-can’t help it . . .” John said. “’M such . . . such a b-bastard.”

Mike reached out and tried to put his hand on John’s arm, but John swatted his hand away.

“I-if he dies . . . I d-don’t think I’ll be able to . . . live with m-myself.”

“But he won’t die, John,” he said, trying say something reassuring. “Please don’t think like th—”

“WE DON’T KNOW THAT!” John screamed, his voice breaking.

Mike scrabbled backwards, toppling back onto his arse, having to cover his ears. John’s voice was so unbelievably loud that he had probably disturbed the neighbours (and they had a detached house), and Mike was certain Eric was now awake.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” He gasped, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Everyone keeps t-telling me that, but we DON’T FUCKING KNOW!” John yelled, sobbing so hysterically that he didn’t look scary any more. “Why can’t a-anyone just admit that he’s in a sh-shit situation and might fucking die? Why is that too much to ask?”

Mike risked taking his hands from his ears, shuffling closer to the older man despite knowing it wasn’t a good idea. “Because we need to be optimistic.”

“But WHY?!” John took a shuddering breath, obviously trying to control his sobs, only to dissolve into hysterical cries again. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped in volume, but hadn’t lost the aggressive and tearful edge, and Mike knew he was not even close to calming down. “Why can’t we be realistic instead? Y-you know what the doctor said, Michael.”

Mike didn’t say anything, wiping his running nose on his hand. John was right; he knew exactly what Dr Davies had told them on that awful night in Accident and Emergency, about the high risk of Gilliam having brain damage and the fact that he might never come out of his coma, but he didn’t want to think about it. But, yet he also didn’t want to argue with John about it, so he didn’t really know what to do.

“I just c-can’t bear the t-thought that if he dies—” John made eye contact, glaring at him, as though he expected him to fight back, but Mike kept quiet, not wanting to set him off again, even though he wanted to point out that Terry was not going to fucking die. “— th-that I never g-got to say goodbye. That m-my last w-words were telling h-him to . . . to f-fuck off, that he was a p-poof, a fairy, a queer.”

Mike winced as he heard John list off the slurs that he had heard far too many times, many of them directed at him or Eric, and part of him wondered how John could ever have said such horrible things to poor Gilliam. But then he looked at his friend’s face and listened to his heartbreaking sobs, and he knew that no one regretted it more than John himself. He just wished they could somehow turn back time, so John could have stopped himself . . . which was when it occurred to him.

“It wasn’t you’re fault, John,” he said, trying his best to smile. He didn’t bother to wipe the tears from his eyes, knowing that John was crying so hard that his vision was probably so blurred with tears that he could see them anyway.

“Y-yes it was,” John sobbed, gripping at his thinning hair behind his ears so hard it must have really hurt. (It took Mike a while to realise that he was probably doing it _because_ it really hurt.)

“Look, I need you to listen to me,” Mike said firmly, shuffling so he was sat right in front of John. John didn’t look up, sobbing into his chest, but Mike didn’t expect him to. “John, listen to me. I know you upset Terry and made him run off, but you didn’t cause the accident.”

“Wh-what?” John mumbled, still not looking at him.

“You didn’t cause the accident, John.”

“I did!”

“No,” Mike said, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “You didn’t. You didn’t make Terry run outside; he chose to. You didn’t make him push Jonesy out of the way; he chose to. And you certainly didn’t make that absolute wanker drive onto the pavement and hit him. None of that was you. It wasn’t your fault.”

John sniffed, but that didn’t do much to stop his nose running. “Really?”

“Of course,” Mike said.

“But if I hadn’t—”

“Then it still might’ve happened,” Mike cut him off, but, for some reason, John didn’t complain. “We don’t know. Just, please, don’t hate yourself for it. Please.”

John didn’t say anything, but Mike saw the smallest of smiles cross his face, and he knew he must have said something right. Slowly, John took his hands from his head and shuffled backwards so he was leaning against the wall, and hugged his knees to his chest. He rested his forehead on his knees and cried into his chest, his sobs still loud but not sounding nearly as pained as they had a few minutes prior.

Mike got to his feet and stumbled into the toilet, and pulled a large amount of toilet paper off of the roll. Then he went back into the living room and sat down on the floor next to John.

“Would you like some tissues?” He asked softly.

John nodded his head without looking up at him. “P-please.”

John took some and scrubbed his face dry, leaving his cheeks looking swollen and raw. Mike did the same, sighing. When he was done, John leaned the back of his head against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, tears still trickling from his bloodshot eyes. Mike looked up too, wondering how the hell Eric hadn’t come down to investigate; he must have been in a bloody deep sleep to have slept through all of John’s screams.

“Come on, don’t cry,” Mike said, trying to put his arm around him.

John pulled away, thankfully not shoving him again, turning his head so Mike couldn’t see his face. “Get off me.”

Mike took his arm away, but didn’t move from beside his friend. John sighed, but didn’t say anything about it.

“Thank you,” John mumbled.

“You’re welcome,” Mike said, smiling sadly.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” He said, sounding humiliated and slightly angry, most likely with himself.

“It’s all right, I don’t mind,” Mike insisted, even though he would have rather have been doing anything else whilst John was screaming at him than have to listen to his friend have a breakdown.

“I just lost it,” John said.

“I know, mate. But I understand, I promise.”

John didn’t look like he entirely believed him, but he still smiled weakly.

“Come on,” Mike said, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Let’s sit somewhere a bit more comfy.”

“I’m fine here,” John muttered, but Mike raised his eyebrows.

“No, I insist,” Mike got to his feet and offered John a hand, which he took, somewhat grudgingly.

They both collapsed onto the sofa, which, to Mike at least, felt wonderfully soft after having been sat on the floor for so long. John wiped his face again, but the tears were still flowing.

“You don’t understand, Mike. I just never learn.” John shuffled so Mike couldn’t see his face.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you know why Tim seems on edge when he’s around me?”

“No,” Mike said, but, now he thought about it, he knew John was right. He didn’t see Tim Brooke-Taylor often, but, when he did, he always seemed oddly cautious around John.

“It’s because I fucking beat him up. Because he’s gay, because he came onto me. Because I’m such a prick. Because I never fucking learn.”

“You beat him up?” Mike gasped, horrified. It all made sense now – no wonder Graeme, Tim’s partner, had a real grudge against John (he seemed to outright hate John, always seeming offish and on edge around him, and always seemed to be blocking Tim from John), considering what he had done to poor Tim.

“I punched him in the face, twice.” John looked like he was about to throw up, hunching forwards in his seat until he was practically bent over. “That was three years ago. Don’t you see, Mike? It’s been three years and I haven’t changed a fucking bit!”

“But you didn’t hit Terry . . . did you?” He said, a bit of doubt in his voice.

“Of course I didn’t,” John said. “But I still said the same awful things to him, for the same reason, effectively.”

“And then I was thinking about Jones,” John continued, his voice shaking a bit.

“What about him?” Mike asked, suddenly very aware of how John never seemed to call Jonesy by his nickname any more, or even his first name.

“About what I said to him this morning,” John said, and Mike didn’t need him to elaborate. “And when he went in for his operation, all I could think about was about if he didn’t pull through, and that I’d been such a wanker to him too.” John hit himself in the forehead, gritting his jaw. “Are you noticing a pattern here?”

Mike nodded, even though he was certain that John was actually asking a rhetorical question; he was definitely noticing a pattern, and just wished he knew how to help.

“I just can’t seem to stop myself being cruel to Jones, Mike,” John said, still gritting his teeth. “I know it’s wrong and it’s not fair, and that he hasn’t really done anything, but whenever I look at him, I just wonder why Gilliam chose to shove him out of the way.”

“I think it was a reflex thing,” Mike said. “Gray once told me about the cause that ‘fight or flight’ thing we do when we’re scared. He said it should actually be called ‘fight, flight or freeze’, because that’s what some of us do. And you all froze, didn’t you, apart from Gilliam?”

John nodded. “I just felt like I was glued to the spot.”

“Exactly, and that’s what Gray and Jonesy were like too. But Gilliam went into flight mode, didn’t he, and he tried to get Jonesy out of the way too. But then . . .”

“He didn’t get out in time himself.” John finished for him, nodding his head. Now he seemed to understand.

“It was just a reflex, John, and you know what reflexes are like – they happen without any choice on your part.”

John sighed. “I just wish Gilliam was here. If it had to be one of them who was in a coma, I still wish it was Jones.”

“But why?” Mike said, exasperated.

“Because I want to tell him I’m sorry for what I said and that I know he loves me and I think I might love him too!” John yelled.

Slowly, his words began to sink in. Mike found himself smiling, whilst John buried his head in his hands.

“What?

“Shit, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” John mumbled.

“You love Gilliam, John?” Mike asked.

“It’s just . . . I don’t fucking know.” John said into his hands, his voice thickening. “I mean, I know I don’t really love Connie any more, and that I’m not sure if women float my boat at all, to be quite honest with you, and I know I care deeply about the American git, and I know he fancies me, but I just don’t know, Mike. I’m just so fucking confused.”

So was Mike. Although, when he thought about it, John loving Gilliam would certainly explain a lot: it explained why he was so quick to defend his friend, it explained why he got so aggressive with the medical staff at the hospital, and it certainly explained why he seemed to be more upset than all of the others put together about what had happened to poor Terry.

And, it made Mike smile genuinely for the first time in a long while, because now he was certain that only one of the six of them was now confirmed as heterosexual (and, to be honest, he wasn’t one hundred percent certain that Jonesy was indeed straight, but he was yet to be proven otherwise), and he wondered what had drawn them all together like this. But he wasn’t complaining.


	15. Chapter 15

Once John had calmed down and was back to pretending that his breakdown had never happened, Mike went to get his makeshift bed back out of the cupboard, knowing it was time for them both to get some sleep. It was only when he was laying it out on the carpet when he realised that he was being an idiot. He sighed, rubbing his sore eyes with the back of his hand.

He stopped and looked up at John, who was staring vacantly at the clock. “Do you want the spare room?”

“Hmm?” John murmured, not looking at him. He wasn’t at all with it, which made sense, when Mike thought about it, when only half an hour before he had been crying hysterically and confessing his possible love for one of his best friends.

“I just mean, uh, well Terry’s not here tonight, is he, so you might as well get a proper bed. Unless you want to go home. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.” He babbled, grimacing at how idiotic he sounded.

“No, I’ll stay,” John said, actually smiling for the first time in what felt like years. “If you don’t mind.”

“Nope, that’s fine, you can stay,” Mike got to his feet and shoved the bedding back into the cupboard, keeping the pillow under his arm.

“Thank you.” John said, and Mike was certain that wasn’t the only thing he was thanking him for.

“No problem,” He handed the pillow to John, and, switching off the light, they traipsed upstairs, treading quietly on the ever creaking stairs.

Giving him a sad smile, John went into the spare room, and Mike trailed into the bathroom. He glanced at the tiny clock on the windowsill, noting that it was almost midnight. That was far too late. Bloody hell, what was happening to him? He was only twenty six and he was already acting like a man twice his age.

As he brushed his teeth, Mike sat on the closed toilet seat, knowing his birthday was only a couple of weeks away. But, judging by all the shit that had happened, he wasn’t going to having a very happy twenty seventh birthday. And then he thought about how selfish that made him sound; yes, he may be set to have a crappy birthday, but at least he wasn’t alcohol dependent, or ill, or having surgery, or questioning his sexuality or in a fucking coma. When he thought about it, he was actually the only one of the six of them who wasn’t having a bad time. Yes, he was definitely being selfish.

Once he was done, he tiptoed into his and Eric’s bedroom, trying his hardest to be quiet, lest he wake him up. He couldn’t see a thing, and that meant he couldn’t see his bloody pyjamas. Sighing, Mike gave up and simply pulled his shoes, trousers and jacket off, dropping them in a heap on the floor, and clamoured into bed wearing just his vest and boxers. Eric groaned and rolled over, but he didn’t wake up, and Mike let himself breathe out.

Sighing, and trying not to listen to what sounded much like John crying in the next room, Mike snuggled up against his partner’s back, and managed to fall asleep.

\---------

When Mike woke up in the middle of the night desperate for a piss, he stopped outside the spare room on his way back from the bathroom. He pressed his ear to the door, but he couldn’t hear anything. But then he listened a bit harder, and he could make out the sound of John sobbing.

But even though it made him feel awful, he didn’t knock on the door or do anything else to try and reassure him. He just sighed and went back to bed, trying to block out the sound by putting his pillow over his head.

It didn’t work.

\---------

Carol knew something was wrong the moment she set foot in Michael and Eric’s living room. Not only was John already here – and looked like he had been here all night – but he was also oddly subdued, something she had never seen before. What the hell was wrong with him?

She smiled at him and sat down next to Eric, who was looking much perkier. Mike sat on Eric’s other side and smiled at her, looking just as tired and weary as John. Yes, something was definitely wrong.

“How are you today, then, Carol?” He asked, handing her the biscuit tin.

She took the lid off and picked out a custard cream, even though she didn’t feel that hungry. “Thanks. Fine, I guess.” Carol said, not bothering to lie.

“That’s good.”

“How do you feel, Eric?” She asked.

Eric shrugged his shoulders. “Still pretty shit, but I think I’m over the worst of it now.”

“That’s good,” she said flatly, echoing Michael. “Have any of you heard from Terry?”

Mike shook his head. “Nope.”

“Do you think he’s all right?”

“The way I see it, we would’ve got a call from Gray if something had gone wrong, so I think he’s fine.”

“Where is Gray?” Eric asked, looking at each of them as though they might know. Carol didn’t, and she wasn’t sure Michael did either.

“I don’t actually know.” Mike said, chuckling slightly.

“I think he stayed at the hospital all night with Terry,” Eric said.

“That was sweet of him,” Carol smiled, wondering why Mike suddenly gave a very knowing smile. What did he know?

\--------

Arriving at the hospital two hours before Gilliam’s visiting hours started, Mike took a rare detour on his way to the ICU, as he was determined to visit Terry to see how he was feeling after his operation. Surgery on the elbow sounded nasty, and Mike grimaced, trying not to think about it. Eric, whilst still too ill to be allowed into Intensive Care, was allowed into most other parts of the hospital by now, which was why he was tagging along with him and Carol. Mike was proud of the fact that he had persuaded John to come and visit Terry too, and, even though he didn’t look happy about it, Mike wasn’t going to let him back out.

They found Terry on a ward with the curtains drawn around his cubical, making his bed as private as it could be without being in a private room (which was obviously only something one got if they were either going private or in Intensive Care). Graham was sat on one of the chairs, looking rather stressed and sweaty, and Terry didn’t look much better. But Mike still tried his best to smile and look happy, even though he was pretty sure none of the others were.

“How did it go then, Terry?” Mike asked. His eyes focused on Graham’s hands, which were shaking like mad.

“Yeah, how’re you feeling?” Eric added, sitting down next to Gray. There were no chairs left, so Mike stood behind him, resting his hands on his shoulders.

“All right, I guess,” Terry muttered, slurring ever so slightly. “Groggy as hell, but at least I’m not in any pain.”

“Why?” Eric asked.

Terry gestured to the IV in his arm. “Painkillers.”

“Of course,” Eric scoffed, grinning. “What a stupid thing to say.”

Terry looked up, and noticed John for the first time. He visibly stiffened, but then gave John an obviously forced smile that made Mike wince. “Hello, John.”

John’s smile, if possible, looked even more forced. “Hello, Terry.”

It took Mike a few seconds to realise that John had just used Jonesy’s actual name, and smiled for real. At least John was trying to be civilised now.

“So the surgery as a success then?” Mike asked, turning back to Terry. The look Terry and Gray exchanged made him feel oddly nervous. “What?”

“Well, actually,” Graham said, his voice lacking its usual drunken slur, and it occurred to Mike that he must have been starting to go into withdrawal from the alcohol, judging by the symptoms he seemed to be exhibiting. He sighed slightly, not having known Gray drank enough to warrant withdrawal symptoms like sweating and shaking hands, but apparently, he did. What if he got the DTs? Mike wasn’t a doctor, but even he knew that you needed to go to hospital if you got them. But then he remembered where he was, and knew that, if his paranoid idea was true, then at least they were in the right place.

“Mike?” Gray nudged hi shoulder, and Mike realised he hadn’t been listening.

“Sorry.” He smiled apologetically. “What were you saying?”

“I was just saying that, no, it actually wasn’t.”

“What?” Mike said, his eyes widening. He squeezed Eric’s shoulders so hard he winced.

“It’s nothing serious,” Gray said, but his slightly panicky facial expression didn’t help reinforce his words.

“What’s happened?”

“They botched the surgery, Mike,” Terry said softly.

Mike gasped, watching his best friend’s eyes get damp. “How?”

“They said it was going to b-b-b-be risky,” Gray said, stuttering badly over one of his words. Mike’s prediction suddenly seemed a lot more accurate, and he made a mental note to harass Graham about it later.

“In what way?” John asked, even though he sounded like he wasn’t very invested in their conversation.

“They had to operate so close to the ulnar nerve that there was a really high risk of accidently severing the nerve.”

“How high?” Eric asked, prising Mike’s fingers from his shoulders and rubbing them.

“Twenty percent,” Terry mumbled. Mike watched him twitch his thumb and first two fingers on his bandaged arm, noticing that his ring and little fingers were totally limp. Shit.

“That’s not very high, though,” Eric said.

“It is,” Gray said, cutting him off. “For a surgical procedure, that’s a damn high risk.”

“But I decided to take the risk anyway, because it was already damaged anyway, and yeah, there wasn’t really any other option,” Jonesy said, looking at his lap. “But, yeah. When I came ‘round, they told me my ulnar nerve was totally severed and there’s no way to repair it.”

“Fucking hell,” Carol muttered.

“Poor Terry,” Mike said, not sure what else to say. He reached over and gave his shoulder a squeeze, but it didn’t appear to help.

“So what does that mean?” Eric asked.

Gray sighed, wiping his sweaty forehead with his hand. “It means he has no control over his ring and little fingers, and no feeling in that side of his arm. In other words, if he hits his ‘funny bone’, he won’t get that tingling feeling go down his arm anymore, because that nerve is fucked.”

“Poor Terry,” Mike said again. Why couldn’t anything ever go right for them anymore? Would that really be too much to fucking ask?

\------

When he went into Gilliam’s room, Mike immediately knew something was different, yet he didn’t know what. However, John worked it out instantly, his expression making him look uncertain whether this was a good or a bad thing.

“The tube’s gone,” he gasped, creeping closer to the bed. Mike did too, and he saw that, indeed, the tube that had been sticking out of Terry’s mouth, along with its headgear, had gone. The marks of the headgear were still imprinted in Terry’s face, but, to be honest, it was sort of a relief to be able to see much more of his face again.

However, there was now a different tube sticking out of the front of his neck, looking so strange and uncomfortable that Mike actually winced.

“What the fuck?” He said, sitting down and dragging his chair right up to the side of the bed.

“Why’ve they done that?” John asked to no one in particular, looking as puzzled as Mike felt.

“He’s had a tracheotomy,” Graham said, leaning against the wall for stability.

“What?” John said, like Gray was speaking a foreign language.

“What’s that?” Mike asked. He thought about Eric and Jonesy, and wondered if either of them might have known.

“It’s when you make an incision in the trac – windpipe, and feed the intubation tube through that instead of through the mouth.”

“But why would they do that?” Carol asked. “I mean, what’s the purpose?”

Gray folded his arms across his chest and sighed. “I’m not exactly sure why they would choose to do it now, but it must be because he’s considered to be stable and likely to be in a coma for quite a while yet, so they’re just making the whole process easier and more comfortable for him.”

When he saw how miserable they all looked, Gray tried to smile and added, “But at least we can see more of his face now, eh? That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Carol smiled weakly. “I suppose so.”

Mike sighed. “So this means they think he’ll be like this for ages then?”

“Not ages, Mike. It’s just a standard procedure that hospitals tend to do if someone’s in a coma for more than a few days. Or, in this case, a week or so. It just makes things easier for long term management of his condition.”

“Shit,” John muttered, screwing his eyes up for a few seconds. “Gray, how long will he be in a coma?”

“I really don’t know,” he said.

John sighed shakily. “I just wish he’d fucking wake up.”

Mike squeezed his arm, smiling sadly as he looked at Terry's lifeless face. “I know, mate. So do I.”

And he knew the others felt exactly the same way.


	16. Chapter 16

The days dragged by, merging into one, long, endless blur. Mike hardly slept, and was struggling to function in his permanently sleep deprived state. Eric was practically better, and was preparing to come and visit Gilliam for the first time. Mike could tell he was anxious, but didn’t know if there was anything he could do to reassure him.

John seemed to be avoiding him, and he wasn’t sure why. Although, when he thought about it, it made sense, because he must have been embarrassed about crying in front of him, not to mention outright shoving him, and telling him exactly what horribly homophobic things he had said and did in the past. Or it might have been because he was worried about him telling people about his feelings for Terry, despite the fact he had repeatedly insisted that he wasn’t telling anyone, and that he could trust him. But, even though he wasn’t sure what to think and if he could ever really trust John again, he knew they were still friends.

As of yesterday, Gilliam, Jonesy and the driver of that fucking car had been named on the regional news , and it was satisfying to know that he was up for ‘causing serious injury by dangerous driving’ and ‘driving under the influence of alcohol’. Although John, judging by the stream of swearwords he directed at the television, seemed to wish he was up for something more serious.

But this also meant that now everyone in London now knew what had happened, and all of their acquaintances and friends kept trying to talk to them and offer to visit Terry, and, even though he knew they were only being human, Mike didn’t really want them to. It made him seem petty, but he wanted this to be about the six of them. They had always just been the six of them, and they all wanted it to stay that way. Still, he at least tried to be polite, unlike John, who was ignoring all the calls he got, and outright went up to the front door when people knocked and told them to fuck off.

However, as none of the Python’s came from London, this meant that none of their families actually seen the news report and so had no idea what had happened, not even Terry’s. Although, considering what Graham had told him about Terry’s parents practically disowning him, he probably wouldn’t have wanted them to know anyway.

It was just so hard to believe that his mum and dad could throw him out. It upset him even more than to know that John had been incredibly homophobic to Terry and hurt one of his friends (and that was hard to accept, believe him), because it was just so fucking wrong. How could you disown your own child just because they were gay? But, then again, even his own partner’s parents had done it, so, really, it wasn’t as rare as people might think.

He just wished it would never happen, ever. And then he almost laughed, because he knew that was never going happen.

\---

After being stuck in hospital for five days, the first thing Terry did when he got back to Michael and Eric’s house was get Graham alone.

He found Gray in the kitchen, swigging from a bottle of gin, and closed the door behind him. Terry looked down at the brace on his arm and flexed his thumb and two working fingers, sighing when his ring and little fingers barely even twitched.

Graham must have heard him sigh, because he put down the bottle and turned around. “Hi, Terry, what’s up?”

Graham had such a posh accent that hearing him use a phrase like ‘what’s up’ made Terry chuckle. At least, it would have done, if he wasn’t so nervous. He wasn’t even sure why he was nervous.

“I just,” he leaned back against the fridge, checking the clock to see how much time he had left until he could take some more painkillers, “wanted to talk to you.”

“Really?” Gray started smiling a knowing and slightly flirty smile.

“Yeah,” Terry sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was so embarrassed. “You know what I said the other day, about not wanting to go out with you? Well, I think I might actually want to go out with you, but . . . just romantically. I’ve been let down so many times that I don’t think I’m ready for a sexual relationship, but I’d still just like to try going out with you, just, you know, hugging and kissing and stuff like that. What do you think?”

Graham was smiling broadly now, looking so happy that Terry wanted to cry.

“Th-that sounds brilliant, old ch-chap,” he said, going red.

Terry smiled too and pulled him into a quick one armed hug. And then he kissed Graham. He’d never kissed a bloke before. But it didn’t seem wrong.

“Get a room!” Eric said from the doorway. He was leaning against the doorframe and smiling in an irritating way.

Terry sighed and stuck his middle finger up at him, but he was smiling. Eric always managed to make him smile.

\---

Eric found himself getting uncharacteristically nervous as she made his way into the intensive care unit, having to follow the others so she didn’t get lost. He took hold of Mike’s hand, and his partner gave his own hand a comforting squeeze.

Mike and his friends led him down an endless corridor, and he considered running away. But he forced himself to carry on walking, knowing that he needed to see Terry. Even if he couldn’t hear him, he needed to be there for him.

“This is his room,” Mike said, drawing to a stop outside one of the windowed rooms.

Graham, John and Terry went straight in, but Eric stopped dead, just staring at his friend through the window. There were so many machines and bandages and stitches that he could barely see Terry, and his eyes filled with tears. And then he saw the tube sticking out of his neck, and the huge scar running up the centre of his abdomen, and the horrendous bruising on his head.

“Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath.

Mike met his eyes, and sighed. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

Eric nodded his head. “Poor Terry.”

He followed Mike into Terry’s room, and was immediately shocked at how loud it was in there. What with the ventilator whirring and the ECG bleeping, he was already getting a headache. His legs felt a bit wobbly, so he sat down next to John, who was holding Terry’s hand. That struck him as odd, because Terry didn’t really go in for handholding, and John, if he did, would never hold another bloke’s hand. But he didn’t question it.

Graham was scanning the chart at the foot of the bed, and looking at the readings on the machines, but he seemed satisfied by what he saw. Mike stood behind him, resting his hands on his shoulders. Jonesy leaned against the wall, poking at his numb fingers in an absent minded way, but he was staring at Gilliam. John was just sitting there, holding his hand and staring at Terry’s face.

They were all staring at Terry, almost as if they were worried he would move if they looked away.

But he didn’t move.

He never moved.

Apart from the rise and fall of his chest, he was perfectly still.

“That’s what he always looks like,” Graham said. “Well, he’s a bit less bruised and he used to have more tubes, but you know what I mean. He’s in what’s known as a deep coma, so, you know, there’s no movement at all. But this is normal for Gilliam.”

John looked up, frowning. “What the fuck do you mean, a ‘deep coma’? He’s either in one or he isn’t . . . isn’t he?” There was a hint of doubt in his voice.

Terry went over to Graham and leaned against him, and Eric wondered if anything had happened between them. He kind of hoped that something had.

“Actually, no, it’s m-more complicated than that,” Graham said, leaning his back against the wall. “A person in a coma can have reflexes and open their e-eyes if they’re in pain, or they can be totally unresponsive.” He looked down at Terry. “And G-Gilliam’s the latter.”

“Fuck,” Eric said, trying to blink back tears. It was just so hard to see him looking like that.

\---

That night, as they were getting ready for bed, Eric heard Michael sigh heavily.

“What’s the matter?” He asked, his voice slightly muffled by his jumper, which he was pulling over his head at the time.

He got his jumper off and turned to look at his partner, who was sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands.

“Hmm?” Mike murmured, looking up at him.

“Is anything the matter?” Eric said, sitting down beside him. “That was quite a sigh.”

“Yeah,” Mike smiled weakly, but he looked like he was about to cry. Come to think of it, ever since the . . . accident, Mike had constantly looked on the verge of tears, but he was doing quite a good job of hiding it. “I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Nothing.”

He raised his eyebrows, “Really?”

Mike sighed again. “Well, maybe I was thinking about something.”

“About what?” Eric said again, starting to wonder if he was pissing Michael off.

Mike sighed heavily, glaring at him. “I was just thinking about my birthday.”

“Ah.”

Of course. Now he understood.

It was Mike’s birthday in four days. It wasn’t that Eric had forgotten; it had just been at the back of his mind. But now he was thinking about it, he understood exactly why Mike was feeling sad: unless Gilliam miraculously got better, Mike was going to have a pretty shit birthday.

“Well don’t you worry,” he said, putting his arm around his partner’s shoulders. “You’re going to have an absolutely spiffing birthday.”

Mike looked at him, raising his eyebrows. “What the fuck, who says ‘spiffing’ anymore? Eric, I’m pretty sure that no one in England has used that word since about 1945.”

“Yeah, well you know what I mean, mister Smart Arse,” he said, grinning.

Mike was smiling too, even though he looked a bit tearful. “Really?”

“Of course,” he said, even though he wasn’t quite sure he was going to fulfil his promise. “You deserve it, mate.”

\---

As they entered the ICU, Michael couldn’t shake the thought that something was wrong. His thought was only intensified when Jason came out of the nurses’ office, and he noticed that the nurse looked very serious. Mike’s heart started pounding, knowing something must have been wrong.

“What’s the matter?” He asked, voicing his thoughts. “Is something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Jason said as he walked alongside the men as they wandered down the corridor. “It’s just that something has changed.”

He was smiling, and Mike didn’t know what to think. He still felt a bit panicked, as if he didn’t quite believe him.

“Is that a good thing?” Gray asked.

The nurse nodded. “Definitely.”

They picked up their pace, and burst into Terry’s room.

Mike sighed.

He looked exactly the same.

But then Gray went straight over to the chart and picked it up. The smile that crossed his face made Mike want to burst into tears.

“What is it?”

“He’s getting better,” Gray said, stunned.

“What do you mean?”

Jason smiled at them all. “He is no longer considered to be in a deep coma.”

“Why?” Terry asked. “What’s happened?”

“This really is excellent news,” Jason smiled too.

“Tell me about it,” Gray said.

“I don’t understand,” John said, frowning. “What does this mean?”

“It means,” Jason said, “that whilst he was totally responsive before, he should now open his eyes as a response to a painful stimulus.”

“Dumb it down a bit for me,” Jonesy said.

“If you stab his finger with something sharp, he will open his eyes.”

All at once, they all began to smile. It made sense now, and Mike no longer felt nervous. John looked like he was about to cry.

“Really?” John asked, grinning so broadly that Mike began to wonder if he was actually John.

Jason nodded, and so did Gray.

“Of course,” the nurse said.

Terry moved closer to the bed. “Can we see?”

Jason smiled. “Of course.”

The nurse took out a long, thin stick that was rounded at one end and pointed at the other. Mike vaguely recognised it as one of the things a doctor would hit your knee with to test your reflexes. Terry grimaced slightly.

They all crowded around the bed and waited for Jason to show them. Mike’s heart was racing, and Eric took his hand. Across the bed, he saw Tim and Gray do the same. He was half expecting this to not work. Judging by the look on John’s face, he was thinking the same thing.

“Right, watch his eyes closely,” Jason said, and he pressed the end of the stick against the tip of Terry’s forefinger.

Gilliam’s eyes snapped open.

“Fucking hell,” Eric whispered. He squeezed Mike’s hand it actually hurt, but he hardly felt it.

His eyes were unfocused, staring blankly at the ceiling, not seeing anything, especially them. But it was so amazing to see Terry’s eyes, his beautiful eyes with irises so dark you could hardly see his pupils, that his own eyes filled with tears.

“Does this . . . does this mean he’s getting better?” Jonesy asked cautiously.

Jason looked up at him. “It’s a good sign, certainly, but total recovery is still quite a long way off, I’m afraid.”

It wasn’t news to them by now, but it still hurt. Mike thought of his birthday, and he knew he wanted nothing else apart from Terry to wake up. That was all he wanted. But he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He sighed.

John picked up Terry’s hand, only to drop it a few seconds later. He suddenly looked very nauseated, and his eyes were shining. Mike remembered how he looked the first time they were allowed to see Gilliam, and knew what was about to happen.

“Excuse me a minute,” John said, and he rushed out of the room just in time to throw up all over his shoes.

\---

“Sorry,” John said to the cleaning lady, who was mopping the floor clean. She scowled at him and muttered something under her breath.

He turned back to Mike and the others, and he looked so happy that Mike wanted to laugh.

“I can’t believe it!” He said, wiping his mouth on his hand. “He’s getting better.”

Graham patted his shoulder. “Yes, he certainly is, old chap.”

Mike reached for Eric’s hand and squeezed it. They went back into Terry’s room, and got Jason to show them again. And again. And again.

“What might happen next?” Jonesy asked. “I mean, if he’s getting better, what might we see next?”

“He should develop reflexes next, so, if I tap his finger he should pull his arm away. After that, he should open his eyes on command or start moving spontaneously.” Jason said. He sighed. “However, I can’t guarantee that any of this will happen. I need you all to realise that.”

Even though it hurt, Mike nodded his head. He knew miracles never happened.


	17. Chapter 17

Everything had been planned. Everything was in place. Everyone was ready. His partner’s birthday was going to be perfect. Well, almost perfect: as perfect as it could be without Terry.

Still, they had been working it out for the last couple of days. Carol had baked a cake and was bringing it over that afternoon. They had bought party poppers and bunting and all of the normal crap at one of their local shops, and John, the only one who could cook, had been up since seven making party food.

Once he was sure Michael was asleep last night, Eric had crept back downstairs and had spent almost an hour blowing up balloons and putting up bunting, and John had watched her from the doorway with a puzzled look on his face.

“He’s twenty seven, Eric, not six,” he had said, and he flicked him the Vs.

“No one’s too old for a proper party, John,” he had replied, and he raised his eyebrows and went back to watching him in silence.

Checking Mike was still asleep, Eric got out of bed and pulled his dressing gown on, and crept out of the room. He went and knocked on the spare room door, finding Terry sat up in bed listening to his radio. He smiled when he saw him, and, picking up a gift bag from the floor, tiptoed out onto the landing with him. They went downstairs and woke up Graham, who was still asleep on his bed of blankets on the living room floor, and put their presents on the sofa.

John came out of the kitchen wearing an apron (he didn’t even know they had a bloody apron in their house). “How’s it going?”

“We’ve got all the presents in here,” he said, feeling a bit like she was doing some secret agent job.

“Where’re the party poppers?” Terry asked, looking around the room.

Eric pulled the box out from under the sofa and pressed it into Jonesy’s hand.

“Have you got your camera?” He asked John.

He nodded, holding up his Super 8 camera, but he looked a bit puzzled. “Why do you want me to film him, exactly?”

“I don’t just want you to film Mike, I want you to film the whole party,” he said. Eric looked down at the floor. “Because, and it might sound stupid, but I thought we could film everything and then show it to Terry when he wakes up.”

When he looked up, he could have sworn that John looked a bit tearful. Across the room, Terry and Gray were smiling.

“I must say that I th-think that’s a lovely idea, old chap,” Graham said, exaggerating his accent until he sounded like a Victorian gentleman.

Eric looked away, embarrassed. “Shut your face, you soppy git.”

Once everything was set up and as ready as it could be, they tiptoed back up the ever creaking stairs. Terry started giggling, and had to clamp his hand over his mouth to muffle the sound. When Eric saw himself and his friends acting like this, he almost forgot that one of them wasn’t here. It was like he was back at Cambridge, acting like an idiot in the Footlights with John and Gray and Tim and Bill and Graeme and everyone else, except now he had his partner, and his other friends, and, of course, poor Gilliam was in the hospital.

Still being as quiet as possible, they crept across the landing and into his and Michael’s bedroom. They crowded around the bed, Terry still giggling into his hand.

He looked to John, who was holding up his camera, his thumb hovering over the record button, and gave him a thumbs up. John nodded, and he mouthed a countdown.

Three . . . two . . . one . . .

“Happy birthday!” They yelled, pulling the strings on their party poppers so confetti and paper ribbons and streamers shot into the air with a resounding pop.

Mike’s eyes snapped open, and he looked slightly freaked out. But once he seemed to realised exactly what they were doing, the loveliest smile crossed his face.

“What the fuck, guys?” he said, but he was giggling.

They sang Happy Birthday, even though none of them but Eric could really sing. Mike had tears in his eyes.

“Why’ve you done this?” He asked.

“I remembered what you said about your birthday the other day,” Eric said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “And I know you don’t want us to make a fuss, but I think you deserve it. You’ve held us together these last few weeks.”

“He’s right,” Terry said, putting his arm around Gray’s shoulders. “You’re like our bloody mother.”

“Now, you n-need to get ready for one,” Gray said, picking confetti out of his hair.

“Why?” A blue piece of paper ribbon had caught in his hair, but he didn’t bother to get rid of it. Eric leaned down and removed it for him, giving him a kiss at the same time.

“Because, my dear Michael,” he said, grinning and wondering why he had suddenly gone so fucking formal, “you are having a birthday party that commences at one o’clock this afternoon.”

Mike grinned and kissed him back. “You soppy gits,” he said, making eye contact with each of them in turn. When he looked at John, his eyes widened. “Are you filming me?”

John nodded, backing away slightly.

“Right,” Mike said, grinning, but his voice was eerily calm. He eased himself upright, and began to creep towards John.

“What’re you doing?” He asked, looking slightly terrified.

“Nothing,” Mike said. “I’m just going to kill you.”

Suddenly, he pounced, and John squealed, actually squealed, running out of the room. Mike chased after him, yelling threats and swinging his fists out.

“Eric! Control your partner.” John said, ducking into the bathroom and locking the door.

Mike banged on the door, but he was laughing hysterically. Eric hadn’t seen him looking this hyper for weeks.

“Sorry, John, but I can’t control him,” he said, leaning against the doorframe of his bedroom door and folding his arms across his chest. “He’s just too wild.”

He heard John laugh, and Eric didn’t blame him. After all, who the hell would describe Michael Palin as ‘wild’? He really was anything but wild. He was the softest person he knew.

\---

A few hours later, Carol arrived, and Mike got to blow out the candles on a beautifully decorated cake. He noticed that John was still filming him, but, despite his acting, it didn’t bother him at all. He was so used to being in front of the cameras at work that it was normal by now.

“Why exactly are you filming me?” He asked.

John switched the camera off and sighed, before giving him a very forced smile. “It was Eric’s idea. He thought it’d be nice to film the whole thing so we can show Gilliam if – I mean _when_ he wakes up.”

Mike smiled, feeling a bit tearful. He squeezed Eric’s hand. “That’s a lovely idea.”

“Yeah, that’s what we thought,” Terry said. “I’m sure Gilliam will love to see it.”

Mike agreed with him, but he couldn’t help but add in his head, _If he wakes up._

\---

He felt miserable as they trailed into the ICU up at the hospital later that afternoon, a very selfish part of him wishing Terry would wake up just for his sake, just so he could actually have a happy birthday. But then he thought again, and he knew he really just wanted Gilliam to wake up for everyone.

He just wanted everything to be back to normal, even though he knew that things never were going to be the same again. Not now Jonesy and Gray were an item. Not now John had admitted his feelings for Gilliam. Not now he knew what John had done to Terry and Tim. Not now Gilliam was seriously injured, and probably never going to be like how he was before the accident. Not now their lives had been changed forever.

Mike sighed and blinked back tears. It just wasn’t fucking fair.

“Are you a-alright, old chap?” Gray said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He nodded a bit too violently, and forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Gray didn’t look convinced, but turned away and went into Gilliam’s room. Mike took a deep breath and followed after him.

He found John in his usual position: sitting down with his chair pulled right up to the side of the bed, holding Gilliam’s hand with their fingers interlocked. Terry was in his usual position too: staring out of the window and flexing his numb fingers with his other, working, hand. Carol was sat beside John, with Eric stood behind her. Gray, as usual, had picked up Gilliam’s chart and was flicking through it.

When a smile crossed Graham’s face, Mike didn’t know what to think.

“What is it, Gray?” Terry asked.

John’s head snapped up, and he frowned, but his voice was panicky when he said, “Has anything happened?”

Graham gave them what Mike assumed was a reassuring smile; it was hard to read the expression of a totally drunk person.

“They’ve t-turned the vent-ventilator down,” he said.

They all jumped when the door opened, only to relax when the saw it was only Jason, the male nurse. He was smiling too.

“Have you seen the news?” He asked, and Gray nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s br-brilliant, isn’t it?”

John was still frowning. “Can you explain this for me, please? I don’t get it. I thought the ventilator is either on or off, but apparently it can be turned down.”

“Yes, I see why you’re confused,” Jason said, looking at the machines and taking the chart from Gray. “But it’s quite simple, really.

“Basically, the ventilator is designed to move breathable air in and out of a patient’s lungs when they cannot do so themselves, but it’s much more than an all or nothing system. Some people’s lungs are functioning, but only partially, such as if they had a punctured lung or pneumonia. And it can be varied depending on how much the patient’s lungs are functioning. For example, it is how we gradually take someone out of an induced coma, by gradually reducing the ventilator until they no longer need it.

Of course, Mr Gilliam isn’t in an induced coma, but the same basic principle still applies. And you have probably noticed that, over the past forty eight hours or so, that Mr Gilliam has been making remarkable progress. He’s no longer considered to be in a deep coma, which means that, as you know, he has some of his basic reflexes, such as opening his eyes in response to a painful stimulus. And, now, his brain appears to be functioning more than it was before, as his lungs are actually beginning to work a little. It’s not a lot, but it means that the ventilator is no longer on its maximum setting. It’s not a lot, I need to remind you, but it is progress.”

Jason smiled. “And progress is always good.”

Mike wanted to hug him, but stopped himself, and hugged Eric instead.

“Yes, it certainly is,” John said, and he was finally smiling. He looked so happy that it made Mike want to cry.

But he didn’t, because he was just too happy to cry. This was a better birthday present than any of his gifts, because this was something really important. And it was one step closer to Gilliam waking up, to Gilliam getting better.


	18. Chapter 18

If Mike had been impressed the last time Gilliam made progress, he practically screamed with joy when he went into Terry’s room four days after that, and found the ventilator had gone completely.

“Look!” He cried, only to get told to shut up by a passing nurse. He had no idea his voice had been that loud.

“Fucking hell,” Carol said under her breath, but she was smiling.

Instead of the horrible white tube sticking out of his neck, Gilliam now had a much simpler oxygen mask strapped over his face. And instead of the horribly massive and noisy ventilator, there was now an oxygen cylinder in its place, which made a gentle hissing noise rather than a horrible clanking whirr like the ventilator had done.

Eric hugged him, wrapping his arms around his chest and squeezing him tight, but Mike barely felt it.

“I can’t believe it,” John said, and Mike didn’t know who he was talking too. He wasn’t sure that John did either.

The incision in Terry’s neck was now covered in a thin sheet of gauze. And, even though Gilliam’s face was technically obscured again, Mike could still see most of his face through the clear plastic face mask, and, anyway, the mask wasn’t nearly as bulky as the original ventilator’s headgear had been.

“He’s breathing by himself,” Terry said, sounding just as stunned. Indeed, Gilliam’s chest was rising and falling without the help of a machine.

Mike hugged Eric back, and found himself wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. Which he did do; he giggled hysterically whilst tears dribbled down his face.

“Don’t cry, Mikey,” Eric whispered, using a nickname Michael hadn’t heard in a long time.

He smiled through the tears. “I can’t help it.”

“I know how you feel, mate,” Jonesy said, putting his arm around Graham. There were tears in his eyes. “This is fucking brilliant.”

Mike couldn’t remember a time when he felt this happy.

\---

The next time they went into the ICU, however, Mike totally freaked out. He and John made their way down the corridor, walking ahead of the others, and drew to a stop outside Terry’s room . . . and found the room empty. The machines had gone, the bed had been stripped . . . it was like Gilliam had never been in there.

It was like he was dead.

They both came to the same terrible conclusion at once, and Mike watched John’s face crumple as his own eyes filled with tears.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, and a couple of tears dribbled down his face. His chest was tightening, and he felt like he was about to throw up.

“Is he dead?” John whispered, not pulling away as Mike put his arm around him.

Mike pressed his face against John’s chest and started sobbing. They clung together, both of them crying and trembling and mumbling about how it wasn’t fair. How could this have happened? He was getting better. He couldn’t be dead.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” Eric said, and Mike heard his footsteps running along the corridor.

He heard Eric skid to a halt beside them, and then gasp.

“Bloody hell,” Eric said, and he put his hand on Mike’s shoulder. His voice was so quiet; he just sounded numb. “There’s no one in there.”

Mike and John pulled apart, both of them wiping at their eyes. Eric looked on the verge of tears himself.

His eyes widened. “There’s no one in there.”

Mike nodded slowly. “Exactly.”

Eric swallows hard. “Fucking hell, is he . . .?”

“What’re you three doing?” Jonesy called, coming up behind him with his arm around Graham’s waist. “What’s the matter?”

“Gilliam’s gone,” John whispered, trying and not succeeding in controlling the way his voice was shaking.

Terry shuffled to the side so he could see into the room, and his eyes widened too. “Shit.”

Mike wiped at his eyes again, but the tears kept coming. John seemed to be having the same problem.

“Where’s Gray gone?” Eric asked.

Mike glanced around, and spotted Gray stumbling into the nurse’s office at the end of the corridor. He tried to control his breathing, but he couldn’t help but panic at what was so obviously happening. Graham came back over, dragging Jason by the arm, and Mike was slightly satisfied to see that Gray looked just as worried as the rest of them.

“What’s the matter with . . . ah,” Jason said, and he smiled sheepishly. “I think I understand what’s going on here.”

John sniffed and wiped his face dry. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Mr Gilliam isn’t dead, Mr Cleese,” Jason said. “He’s been moved out of intensive care.”

“What?” John said, and Mike heard everyone sigh with relief. His chest didn’t feel so tight anymore.

“He’s been moved down to critical. He doesn’t need to be in here anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because he doesn’t need constant monitoring anymore. He’s off the ventilator, as you know, and that means he doesn’t need to be in here anymore.”

Eric was smiling, “and that’s a good thing, right?”

“Yes,” Jason nodded, smiling. “It’s definitely a good thing, Mr Idle.”

“And he’s definitely not dead?” John said.

Jason nodded, giving John a slightly wary look. “Yes, Mr Cleese, he’s not dead.”

John sighed so loudly that they all heard it. They all relaxed, but Mike still felt stressed and tearful, and it only got worse after Jason gave them directions and they set off in search of Gilliam’s new room.

“I’m worried, Eric,” he whispered.

Eric squeezed his hand. “Don’t be, mate, it’s fine. He’s fine.”

They wandered down corridors, wound around corners and went up several floors in the lift, and eventually found the ward they had been directed to. As they walked down it, Mike noticed that most of the people on this ward seemed to be semi-conscious, but many were responding to their visitors and none of them were on ventilators. He found himself smiling.

At the end of the ward was a side room, which, when they stood in the doorway, was obviously Gilliam’s new room. Gilliam’s new room was much smaller than his one down in intensive care, but, Mike supposed, it didn’t need to be now he wasn’t hooked up to the massive ventilator. Like before, Terry had electrodes on his chest and an oxygen mask over his face, and he still had the catheter, but he looked so much better than he had with all of the other machines attached to him, and Mike smiled again.

“He looks so much better, doesn’t he?” He said, to no one in particular. Eric squeezed his hand.

“Yes, he does,” John said, smiling, and it was hard to believe that only a few minutes prior he had been crying his eyes out, because he now looked so happy. “He really does.”

\---

The Python’s quickly adjusted to Terry’s new room, each of them finding a new place to stand or sit, and more than one nurse made a not so sarcastic comment about them making themselves at home. Mike took it as a compliment.

On this particular day, Graham was sat on the floor with his back resting against the radiator, and Jonesy was sat on Gray’s lap, and they both looked so content that it made Michael want to cry. As he had before, John was sat in one of the plastic chairs, pulled right up to the side of the bed, holding Gilliam’s hand and taking pleasure in being able to make Gilliam’s eyes open by squeezing his fingers. Eric was sat beside him, and Mike was leaning his back against the wall, staring at the reading on the ECG: 62 BPM.

It was oddly peaceful in there, at least, until John spoke, and then everything went mental. But in the best possible way.

“Look,” he gasped.

He pointed a shaking hand at the foot of the bed, where Gilliam’s toes were twitching.

His toes were twitching.

His. Toes. Were. Twitching.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Mike said, his eyes widening.

John looked like he was going to throw up. Terry and Eric suddenly looked up, and their eyes widened. Graham scrabbled to his feet, knocking Terry off of his lap in the process, and leaned right over Gilliam’s head.

“Fucking hell,” he said under his breath.

“Gray, what’s happening?” Terry asked.

Gray moved to look at Terry’s foot. His toes were the only thing visible, sticking out of the end of the plaster cast covering the whole of his lower leg, and his big and second toes were both twitching. Gray squeezed one of his toes and Gilliam’s eyes opened again.

“Well, that sh-shows that his left leg isn’t pa-paralysed as badly as we f-first thought,” Gray said, looking like he was trying hard to stay calm and not quite succeeding.

John was blinking back tears. Mike stared at Gilliam’s open eyes, wishing that he would just wake up, that there could be some life in his eyes. But there wasn’t; hi eyes were still lifeless. Eric was squeezing his hand so hard his fingers were tingling.

Graham moved further up the bed and pinched the end of Gilliam’s finger. To everyone’s amazement, his arm jerked away from Gray’s touch, just as if he had touched something hot. It was a reflex. He was getting his reflexes back.

Mike looked up at Graham, and smiled weakly. “This is good, isn’t it, Gray?”

Graham nodded his head. “It’s fucking amazing, o-old chap.”

\---

Over the next few days, Terry made remarkable progress, such remarkable progress that the doctors were beginning to wonder if their initial predictions had been wrong. But none of them ever expected what happened one afternoon in late May, over ten days after his last leap towards recovery.

Mike was sat at Gilliam’s side, talking to him, fighting back tears, when he said the words that somehow changed everything.

“Please, Gilly, just open your eyes.” He said, his voice wobbling.

And, just like that, Terry’s eyes opened.

Mike leaned over him, feeling tears dribble down his face.

There was life in his eyes.

He recognised him.

He was coming out of the coma.

He was awake.

He was there.

He wasn’t brain dead.

“Look!” Mike shrieked.

The others hurried over and saw the same thing he did. And then they all started laughing hysterically, as though they were both excited and doubtful at the same time. John leaned right over the bed, staring into Gilliam’s eyes, and something seemed to happen to him. He started sobbing loudly, but Mike could hear the laughter in his voice, and part of him wondered where the fuck John Cleese had gone.

Without warning, John turned and picked Mike up and spun him around and around, laughing hysterically even though there were tears running down his cheeks.

“What the fuck are you doing, John?” Eric said, and Mike could hear his voice shaking like he was laughing.

“Put me down!” Mike yelled, kicking his legs out. He hadn’t been picked up like that for over twenty years, and it was making him feel as sick as it always used to.

“What the heck is going on in here?” A nurse asked, presumably from the doorway.

With surprising obedience, John put him down, and Mike closed his eyes for a few seconds as the room continued to spin.

“He’s coming out of the coma!” Terry cried.

Mike glanced up, and, indeed, a nurse was stood in the doorway, staring at them all with a strange expression on her face.

“He opened his eyes when Mike said his name,” Eric said, grinning.

Dizzily, Mike sat down in front of Gilliam and tried his best to look at him. His eyes locked with Mike’s, and, although he didn’t move, he knew Gilliam knew who he was.

The nurse smiled. “Well, that is a reason to be excited,” she said, coming into the room, “but would it be at all possible for you lot to keep your voices down?”

Terry smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

The nurse went over to the bed and leaned over Terry. After looking at him for a few seconds, she picked up his chart, and flicked through it. She smiled. “He’s still in a coma, but this is remarkable progress.”

When Gilliam’s eyes closed again, Mike started crying, and he knew John was too, even though he was hiding his face. It wasn’t fair; they just wanted him to be better, and they didn’t know why that was such an outrageous suggestion. He was in there somewhere, he just knew it; they just needed to wait for him to respond properly.

\---

Two days after that, Gilliam’s progress became even more remarkable. Because, this time, he opened his eyes without any kind of stimulus: he did it spontaneously.

“Jesus Christ,” John said.

He was sat beside Terry, holding his hand, but he didn’t notice that Gilliam’s eyes were open. Instead, he was more amused by the fact that Terry was now squeezing his fingers.

The others were attracted by John’s voice, and soon they were all crowding around the bed, watching Gilliam, who seemed to recognise all of them. Mike watched his fingers twitch, and then went back to watching his face. He looked like he was trying to smile.

The first thing that Michael noticed was that Terry, now he was conscious, looked like he had had a stroke. The right side of his face was drooping, and his right arm and leg (which weren’t the ones that were in casts) were limp and unresponsive. In a way, he kind of had had a stroke, when Mike thought about it, because he had hit the left side of his head (which controlled the right side of his body), and had a huge amount of bleeding on the brain, which, according to Gray, was similar to what happened to people who’d had a stroke. And, even though it made him feel pathetic, it sort of scared Mike to see Gilliam like that.

He had to turn his head away, screwing his eyes up so he didn’t cry. But then he realised how much of an arsehole he was being, and tried his hardest to smile. Mike went over to the bed, and watched Terry smiled his lopsided smile at him.

“Hello, Terry,” he said, smiling back.

Unlike the day before yesterday, they all seemed too stunned by what was happening, all of them just standing there and staring at Terry. So, when the nurse came in, they barely noticed her.

“What’s going on in here?” She asked. She came over to the bed, and, after studying Gilliam for a few seconds, she began to smile. “Well this is a surprise. Hello, Mr Gilliam.”

Terry tried to smile at her, and she grinned back. Then she turned to the rest of them, suddenly looking serious again. “I’m sorry, gents, but I need to do some checks on him, so can you all back away for a few minutes, please.”

None of the others wanted to, but they obeyed her, stepping away from the bed. John looked like he was desperate to talk to Gilliam, but instead went and sat back down, and just stared at him. Gilliam’s eyes were on John the whole time. It was like John was the only person he was seeing.

They watched as the nurse tested Gilliam’s reflexes (he had them in his left limbs, but not in his right limbs), his eyesight (not damaged) and his hearing. She looked a bit disturbed when she discovered that Gilliam was now deaf in his left ear.

“How did that happen?” Jonesy asked, like he really didn’t want to know the answer.

“Well, I’m not a doctor, but my best guess is cochlear damage.” As she saw the confused look on their faces, she added, “The cochlear is in your inner ear, and is covered with really fine hairs. If the hairs are damaged, usually by extended exposure to extremely loud noises, your hearing is impaired. In this case, the damage was most likely caused by the head injury, but it’s the same principle either way.”

“Is it permanent?” John asked, with just as much doubt and reluctance as Terry.

She nodded. “Most likely, yes. But he has full hearing in his other ear. Besides, that’s not really a problem right now.” The nurse looked down at Gilliam again, and then at her notes. “I just need to get the ward specialist, and he’ll give Mr Gilliam some more checks.”

The nurse left the room, and John immediately moved right up to the bed again. He didn’t even look at the others before he took Gilliam’s hand again and gave him a rare, genuine smile.

“Hello, Terry,” he said softly. John leaned down and kissed Gilliam’s bearded cheek, and Terry gave him the loveliest wonky smile.

“Whoa, get a room there, John,” Jonesy said, grinning. Mike didn’t blame him; that was probably the least John-like thing Mike had ever seen John do.

“Fuck off,” John said, but he said it fondly, and Mike could tell he didn’t hate Jonesy anymore.

Slowly, as though his arm was incredibly heavy, Gilliam reached out with his working, casted arm and took John’s hand. John interlocked their fingers, and he looked like he was about to cry when Terry squeezed his hand back. Mike knew he’d been waiting for Gilliam to do that for weeks.

“I love you, Terry, I love you, I love you, I love you,” he said, and suddenly there were tears running down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry for what I said to you. I didn’t really mean it, I promise. Don’t ever leave me again.”

Terry looked like he wanted to say something back, but they all knew he couldn’t speak. Instead, he gave John another lopsided smile, but that seemed good enough for John.

And, even though he knew total recovery was a long way off, Mike knew that Gilliam was getting better, that he was there, that he was still him, and that was good enough for all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this story. And, don't worry, this series isn't over. :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Comatose Diaries (A Spinoff Of BookwormgirlLH 's "Together")](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7216489) by [kenpile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenpile/pseuds/kenpile)




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